Bahamas Gazetteers

Online Gazetteers

 * FamilySearch Places
 * British West Indies and Burmuda : official standard names approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
 * Act of the Legislature of the Island of Bermuda 1862
 * Reports on the Bahamas HathiTrust.org
 * GeoNames.org
 * List of Islands in the Bahamas
 * Promised is'land : Reconstructing History and Identity among the Black Seminoles of Andros Island
 * Ancestors from the West Indies
 * Caribbean Surname Index
 * World Gazetteers at Archive.org

Print Only Gazetteers

 * The early settlers of the Bahamas and colonists of North America Arnold Talbot Bethell, The early settlers of the Bahamas and colonists of North America, Holt, Eng., Rounce & Wortley, 1937
 * The American Gazetteer Jedidiah Morse, D.D., The American Gazetteer, Printed in Boston 1797
 * Bahamas National Archives A List of documents available at the Bahamas National Archives

Why Use Gazetteers
A gazetteer is a dictionary of place-names. Gazetteers list or describe towns and villages, parishes, states, populations, rivers and mountains, and other geographical features. They usually include only the names of places that existed at the time the gazetteer was published. Within a specific geographical area, the place-names are listed in alphabetical order, similar to a dictionary. You can use a gazetteer to locate the places where your family lived and to determine the civil and religious jurisdictions over those places.

There are many places within a country with similar or identical place-names. You will need to use a gazetteer to identify the specific town where your ancestor lived, the state the town was or is in, and the jurisdictions where records about the person was kept.

Gazetteer Contents
Gazetteers may also provide additional information about towns, such as:


 * Different religious denominations
 * Schools, colleges, and universities
 * Major manufacturers, canals, docks, and railroad stations
 * The population size.
 * Boundaries of civil jurisdiction.
 * Ecclesiastical jurisdiction(s)
 * Longitude and latitude.
 * Distances and direction from other from cities.
 * Schools, colleges, and universities.
 * Denominations and number of churches.
 * Historical and biographical information on some individuals (usually high-ranking or famous individuals)