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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 Vivian (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 Vivian. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

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 south 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.

Vivian is located in Foard 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 Foard County: Baylor, Cottle, Hardeman, King, Knox & Wilbarger.

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

  • Foard County     (The home county of Vivian)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Vivian, with the one closest to Vivian listed first.
    • Crowell
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Foard City
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Foard City is located in Foard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foard City
    • Margaret
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Margaret is located in Foard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Margaret
    • Thalia
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Thalia is located in Foard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thalia
    • Rayland
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Rayland is located in Foard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rayland
  • Childress County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Vivian, with the one closest to Vivian listed first.
    • Kirkland
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Childress
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Cottle County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Vivian, with the one closest to Vivian listed first.
    • Baker
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Baker is located in Cottle County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Baker
    • Chalk
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Paducah
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Hardeman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Vivian, with the one closest to Vivian listed first.
    • Goodlett
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Quanah
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Medicine Mound ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Medicine Mound is located in Hardeman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Medicine Mound
    • Chillicothe
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Knox County
    • Gilliland
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Gilliland is located in Knox County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gilliland

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

Cemeteries Near Vivian ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Vivian.

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 Vivian - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Crowell Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Swearingen Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Tennessee Valley Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • Margaret Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Goodlett Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Memorial Park
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Thalia Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
  • Garden of Memories
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garden of Memories
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Garden of Memories is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southeast of Paducah.
    • The Garden of Memories has also been known as:
    • Garden of Memories Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #3755 <3>
  • Shinnery Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Truscott Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Big Valley Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Dunlap Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (10 more) ...
    • Kirkland Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Scott Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Buck Creek Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buck Creek Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Buck Creek Cemetery is located 6 miles [9.7 km]<2> to the southwest of Paducah.
      • The Buck Creek Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Harmony Church Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1462984 <3>

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.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Vivian had a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Crowell
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Quanah
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Truscott
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Truscott is located in Knox County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Truscott
  • Paducah
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Thalia
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Thalia is located in Foard County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thalia
  • Kirkland
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
  • Rayland
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Rayland is located in Foard County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rayland
  • Chillicothe
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Vivian ...

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 35 newspapers that have been published in the area around Vivian.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Vivian, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Vivian.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Vivian:

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>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- Vivian) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<4>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 Vivian, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.