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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 Lignite (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 Lignite. 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 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.

Lignite is located in Bonner County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Bonner County: Boundary, Kootenai, Lincoln, Shoshone, Sanders (MT), Pend Oreille (WA) & Spokane (WA).

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

  • Bonner County     (The home county of Lignite)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lignite, with the one closest to Lignite listed first.
    • Algoma
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Algoma is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Algoma
    • Sagle
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Sandpoint
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Dover
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Dover is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dover
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 968 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Dover <1>
    • Kootenai
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Ponderay
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Dufort
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
      • Dufort is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dufort
    • Westmond
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Westmond is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westmond
    • Boyer
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Boyer is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boyer
    • Wrencoe
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Wrencoe is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wrencoe
    • Cocolalla
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Hope
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
      • Hope is also located in Bonner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hope
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hope <1>
    • Laclede
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Boundary County
  • Kootenai County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lignite, with the one closest to Lignite listed first.
    • Bayview
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Athol
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Belmont
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Belmont is located in Kootenai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belmont
    • Spirit Lake
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Echo Beach
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Echo Beach is located in Kootenai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Echo Beach
    • Garwood
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
      • Garwood is located in Kootenai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garwood
    • Sturgeon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Sturgeon is located in Kootenai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sturgeon
  • Sanders County (MT)
    • Heron
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Pend Oreille County (WA)
    • Newport
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Newport is located in Pend Oreille County (WA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newport
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,266 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Newport <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Lignite ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lignite.

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

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

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

  • Lakeview Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Pinecrest Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Pinecrest Memorial Park
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Westmond Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Drake Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Old Hope Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Pack River Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pack River Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Pack River Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located 8 miles [12.9 km]<3> to the northeast of Sandpoint.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #80594 <2>
  • Seneacquoteen Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Hope Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Gold Creek Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Clara Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Clark Fork Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (9 more) ...
    • Mountain View Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Greenwood Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Pine Grove Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)

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

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

  • Sandpoint
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Kootenai
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Cocolalla
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Priest River
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
  • Athol
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Ramsey
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Ramsey is located in Kootenai County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ramsey
  • Heron
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Lignite ...

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 18 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lignite.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Lignite, there are papers which were published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Lignite.

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 Lignite:

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>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- Lignite) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Lignite, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.