RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Iowa >> Cass County >> Massena >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Massena (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 Massena. 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 hospitals and doctors 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.

Massena is located in Cass County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Cass County: Adair, Adams, Audubon, Guthrie, Montgomery, Pottawattamie & Shelby.

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

  • Cass County     (The home county of Massena)
  • Adair County
  • Adams County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Massena, with the one closest to Massena listed first.
    • Mount Etna
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Mount Etna is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Etna
    • Carl
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Lincoln Center
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Lincoln Center is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lincoln Center
    • Williamson
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Carbon
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Quincy
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Quincy is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quincy
    • Strand
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Queen City ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Queen City is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Queen City
    • Prescott
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Corning
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Brooks
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Stringtown
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Stringtown is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stringtown
    • Mercer
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Audubon County
  • Guthrie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Massena, with the one closest to Massena listed first.
    • Adair
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Casey
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Menlo
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • North Branch
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Stuart
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Glendon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Madison County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Massena, with the one closest to Massena listed first.
    • Webster
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Macksburg
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Montgomery County
  • Page County
    • Hepburn
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Hepburn is located in Page County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hepburn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 17 people
  • Pottawattamie County
    • Walnut
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Walnut is located in Pottawattamie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walnut
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 768 people
  • Shelby County
    • Elk Horn
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Taylor County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Massena, with the one closest to Massena listed first.
    • Lenox
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Guss
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Union County

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

Cemeteries Near Massena ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Massena.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Massena, with the one closest to Massena 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Massena had a population of 279 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Massena had a population of 334 people.

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

  • Bridgewater
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Cumberland
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Mount Etna
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Mount Etna is located in Adams County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Etna
  • Carl
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Fontanelle
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Wiota
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Lyman
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Grant
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Grant is located in Montgomery County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grant
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 84 people
  • Fisk
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Fisk is located in Adair County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fisk
  • Anita
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Strand
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Carbon
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Quincy
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Quincy is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quincy
    • Nevinville
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Nevinville is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nevinville
    • Canby
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Canby is located in Adair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Canby

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Massena ...

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 64 newspapers that have been published in the area around Massena.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Massena. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Massena and those printed in the larger area surrounding Massena.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Massena.

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 Massena:

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>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 Massena, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Massena) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.