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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Simmons (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Simmons. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Simmons is located in Live Oak County.

To see how the shape of Texas' counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Live Oak County: Atascosa, Bee, Duval, Jim Wells, Karnes, McMullen & San Patricio.

Below are the counties that are near Simmons. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Simmons:

  • Live Oak County     (The home county of Simmons)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.
    • Ike
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Ike is located in Live Oak County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ike
    • Three Rivers
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Oakville
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • George West
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Ray Point
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Ray Point is located in Live Oak County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ray Point
    • Whitsett
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Mikeska
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Mikeska is located in Live Oak County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mikeska
    • Dinero
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Atascosa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.
    • Campbellton
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Peggy
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Fashing
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Fashing is located in Atascosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fashing
    • Christine
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Bee County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.
    • Pawnee
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Mineral
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Clareville ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Clareville is located in Bee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clareville
    • Blue Berry Hill
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Blue Berry Hill is located in Bee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blue Berry Hill
  • McMullen County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.
    • Calliham
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Tilden
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Simmons, see our County-by-County Page for Simmons.

Cemeteries Near Simmons ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Simmons.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Simmons - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Simmons covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.

  • Simmons Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Oakville Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • St. George Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Ray Point Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ray Point Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Ray Point Cemetery is located outside and to the south of Ray Point.
  • Gussettville Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Old Gussettville Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Clegg Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Lebanon Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
  • Latham Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Wernli Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Cross Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Mineral Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (23 more) ...
    • Nell Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Wright Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Campbellton Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

While we didn't find Simmons in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Simmons.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Simmons, with the one closest to Simmons listed first.

  • Oakville
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Tilden
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • La Para
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • La Para is located in Live Oak County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Para
  • Mineral
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Lagarto
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Lagarto is located in Live Oak County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lagarto

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Simmons. See our List of 1890's Communities around Simmons.

Newspapers Published in Simmons ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 11 newspapers that have been published in the area around Simmons.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Simmons, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Simmons.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Simmons:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Simmons, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Simmons) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.