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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 Wells (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 Wells. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Wells is located in Lynn 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 Lynn County: Borden, Crosby, Dawson, Garza, Hockley, Lubbock & Terry.

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

  • Lynn County     (The home county of Wells)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wells, with the one closest to Wells listed first.
    • Tahoka
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Draw
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Draw is located in Lynn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Draw
    • New Lynn ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • New Lynn is located in Lynn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Lynn
    • Grassland
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Grassland is located in Lynn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grassland
    • New Home
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Wayside ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Wayside is located in Lynn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wayside
    • Wilson
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
  • Dawson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wells, with the one closest to Wells listed first.
    • O'Donnell
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • O'Donnell is located in Dawson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for O'Donnell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 847 people
    • Welch
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Lamesa
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • Lamesa is located in Dawson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lamesa
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 9,131 people
      • Lamesa has also been known as:
      • La Mesa
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Lamesa <1>
    • Los Ybanez
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
      • Los Ybanez is located in Dawson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Los Ybanez
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 17 people
    • Sparenberg
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Sparenberg is located in Dawson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sparenberg
  • Gaines County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wells, with the one closest to Wells listed first.
    • White City ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • White City is located in Gaines County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
    • Loop
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Garza County
    • Close City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Close City is located in Garza County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Close City
      • Close City has also been known as:
      • Ragtown
  • Hockley County
    • Ropesville
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Lubbock County
    • Slide
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Slide is located in Lubbock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Slide
  • Terry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wells, with the one closest to Wells listed first.
    • Brownfield
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Meadow
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Wellman
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)

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

Cemeteries Near Wells ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Wells.

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

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

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

  • ODonnell Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Pride Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Nevels Memorial Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Rest Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Tahoka Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tahoka Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Tahoka Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southeast of Tahoka.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #240391 <2>
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Plain View Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Union Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Grassland Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Green Memorial Park
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Green Memorial Park
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Green Memorial Park is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Wilson.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #3923 <2>
  • Foster Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
  • Midway Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (8 more) ...
    • County Memorial Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • New Mt. Zion Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Old County Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)

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>

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

  • Grassland
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Grassland is located in Lynn County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grassland

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

Newspapers Published in Wells ...

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 16 newspapers that have been published in the area around Wells.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Wells, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Wells.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer 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 Wells:

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>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 from Point A (ie- Wells) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Wells, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.