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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 Woodlake (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 Woodlake. 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.

Woodlake is located in Trinity 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 Trinity County: Angelina, Cherokee, Houston, Polk, San Jacinto & Walker.

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

  • Trinity County     (The home county of Woodlake)
  • Angelina County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodlake, with the one closest to Woodlake listed first.
    • Rutland
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Rutland is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rutland
    • Blix
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Diboll
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Shady Grove
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Shady Grove is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shady Grove
    • Granville
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Prairie Grove
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Prairie Grove is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Prairie Grove
    • Burke
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Peavy
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Peavy is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peavy
    • Beulah
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Beulah is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beulah
    • Hudson
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Hudson is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hudson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 5,288 people
    • Providence
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Providence is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Providence
    • Bald Hill
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Bald Hill is located in Angelina County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bald Hill
  • Houston County
  • Polk County
  • San Jacinto County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodlake, with the one closest to Woodlake listed first.
    • Point Blank
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Oakhurst
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Coldspring
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Tyler County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodlake, with the one closest to Woodlake listed first.
    • Peach Tree Village
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Peach Tree Village is located in Tyler County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peach Tree Village
    • Chester
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
  • Walker County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodlake, with the one closest to Woodlake listed first.
    • Riverside
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Kittrell
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
    • Dodge
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Woodlake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Woodlake.

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

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

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

  • Sumpter Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Josserand Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Carmona Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Wagner Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Wagner Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Lacy Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Glenwood Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Parker Ridge Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Abbott Springs Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Abbott Springs Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Dean Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Bethel Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (156 more) ...
    • Mt. Zion Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Bennett Cemetery
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Burch Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)

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 Woodlake in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Woodlake.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Woodlake ...

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 37 newspapers that have been published in the area around Woodlake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Woodlake, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Woodlake.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

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

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' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Woodlake) 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 Woodlake, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.