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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 Malden (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 Malden. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Malden is located in Bureau County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Bureau County: Henry, La Salle, Lee, Marshall, Putnam, Stark & Whiteside.

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

  • Bureau County     (The home county of Malden)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Dover
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Zearing
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Greenoak
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Hollowayville
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
      • Hollowayville is located in Bureau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hollowayville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 85 people
    • Arlington
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Seatonville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Princeton
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Cherry
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Kasbeer
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Limerick
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • De Pue
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
      • De Pue is located in Bureau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for De Pue
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,665 people
    • Ottville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Henry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Annawan
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
    • Hooppole
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • La Salle County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Peru
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Troy Grove
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • La Salle
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Mendota
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Cedar Point
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Triumph
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Waltham
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Oglesby
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
    • North Utica
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • North Utica is located in La Salle County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Utica
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,333 people
    • Utica
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Deer Park
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Deer Park is located in La Salle County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deer Park
    • Tonica
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Lee County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Sublette
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Amboy
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • West Brooklyn
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Inlet
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Lee Center
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Harmon
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • The Burg
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Compton
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Eldena
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Radley
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Paw Paw
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • East Paw Paw
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • East Paw Paw is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Paw Paw
  • Marshall County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Henry
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Lacon
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Lacon is located in Marshall County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lacon
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,713 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Lacon <1>
    • Sparland
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Varna
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Camp Grove
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Evans ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Hopewell
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Hopewell is located in Marshall County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hopewell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 394 people
    • Wenona
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Putnam County
  • Stark County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden listed first.
    • Bradford
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Osceola
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Castleton
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Modena
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Whiteside County

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

Cemeteries Near Malden ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Malden.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Malden, with the one closest to Malden 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 Malden had a population of 319 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Malden had a population of 338 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Malden ...

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 49 newspapers that have been published in the area around Malden.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Malden, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Malden.

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 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 Malden:

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>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 Malden, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Malden) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.