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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 West Odessa (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 West Odessa. 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.

Name Variations for West Odessa ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for West Odessa: W. Odessa

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 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.

West Odessa is located in Ector County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Ector County: Andrews, Crane, Midland, Upton, Ward & Winkler.

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

  • Ector County     (The home county of West Odessa)
    • The following are listed by their distance from West Odessa, with the one closest to West Odessa listed first.
    • Penwell
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Penwell have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Penwell
      • Penwell is located in Ector County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Penwell <2>
    • Odessa
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Goldsmith
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Goldsmith have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldsmith
      • Goldsmith is located in Ector County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 277 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Goldsmith <2>
    • Judkins
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Judkins
      • Judkins is located in Ector County
    • Scharbauer City
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Scharbauer City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scharbauer City
      • Scharbauer City is located in Ector County
    • Gardendale
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Notrees
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Notrees have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Notrees
      • Notrees is located in Ector County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Notrees <2>
  • Andrews County
    • Coyote Corner
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Coyote Corner. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coyote Corner
      • Coyote Corner is located in Andrews County
  • Midland County
    • Midland
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Ward County
    • The following are listed by their distance from West Odessa, with the one closest to West Odessa listed first.
    • Monahans
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Thorntonville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Thorntonville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thorntonville
      • Thorntonville is located in Ward County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 558 people

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

Cemeteries Near West Odessa ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of West Odessa.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

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

  • Odessa Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Rose Hill Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Los Angeles Gardens Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Sunset Memorial Gardens
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunset Memorial Gardens
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunset Memorial Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • American Heritage Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
  • Monahans Memorial Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Monahans Memorial Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Monahans Memorial Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Monahans.
    • The Monahans Memorial Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Municipal Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2138721 <4>
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fairview Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fairview Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Rest Haven Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rest Haven Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rest Haven Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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.<5>

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

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

  • Douro
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Douro have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Douro
    • Douro is located in Ector County
  • Odessa
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Metz
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Metz have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Metz
    • Metz is located in Ector County
  • Warfield
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Warfield have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Warfield
    • Warfield is located in Midland County
  • Midland
    (28 miles [45.1 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 West Odessa. See our List of 1890's Communities around West Odessa.

Newspapers Published in West Odessa ...

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 34 newspapers that have been published in the area around West Odessa.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of West Odessa, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for West Odessa.

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 West Odessa:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for West Odessa. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for Ector County: www.co.ector.tx.us/

The official website for State of Texas: https://texas.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<4>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.
<5>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 West Odessa, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- West Odessa) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in West Odessa. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 31.8365, Longitude: -102.5168       In this case, the coordinates for West Odessa have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025