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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 Franklin (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 Franklin. 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.

Cemeteries Near Franklin ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Franklin.

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

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

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

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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Franklin had a population of 875 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Franklin had a population of 7,833 people.

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

  • Lees Mill
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Lees Mill is located in Isle of Wight County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lees Mill
  • Isaac
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Isaac is located in Southampton County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Isaac
  • Delaware
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Delaware is located in Southampton County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Delaware
  • South Quay
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • South Quay is located in Suffolk City
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Quay
  • Elwood
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Elwood is located in Suffolk City
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elwood
  • Carrsville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Handsom
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Cleopus
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Cleopus is located in Suffolk City
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cleopus
  • Holland
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Courtland
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Riddicksville
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Riddicksville is located in Hertford County (NC)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riddicksville
  • Dort
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Dort is located in Gates County (NC)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dort
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Vicksville
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Vicksville is located in Southampton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vicksville
    • Newsoms
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Berlin
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Franklin ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around Franklin.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Franklin. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Franklin and those printed in the larger area surrounding Franklin.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 18 miles [29 km]<4> of Franklin.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Franklin:

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>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 Franklin, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Franklin) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.