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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 Norcatur (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 Norcatur. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

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 south 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.

Norcatur is located in Decatur County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Decatur County: Norton, Rawlins, Sheridan, Thomas, Furnas (NE) & Red Willow (NE).

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

  • Decatur County     (The home county of Norcatur)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norcatur, with the one closest to Norcatur listed first.
    • Lyle
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Kanona
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Jennings
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Allison ‑ Historic
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Oberlin
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Dresden
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Leoville
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Leoville is located in Decatur County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leoville
    • Traer
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Traer is located in Decatur County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Traer
  • Norton County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norcatur, with the one closest to Norcatur listed first.
    • Rockwell City ‑ Historic
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Rockwell City is located in Norton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rockwell City
    • Clayton
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Oronoque
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Dellvale
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Norton
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Lenora
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
    • Edmond
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Edmond is located in Norton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Edmond
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 46 people
      • Edmond has also been known as:
      • Edmond City
    • Almena
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Almena is located in Norton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Almena
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 376 people
    • Densmore
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Sheridan County
    • Selden
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Furnas County (NE)
  • Red Willow County (NE)

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

Cemeteries Near Norcatur ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Norcatur.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Norcatur, with the one closest to Norcatur 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 Norcatur had a population of 165 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Norcatur had a population of 142 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Norcatur ...

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 110 newspapers that have been published in the area around Norcatur.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Norcatur. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Norcatur and those printed in the larger area surrounding Norcatur.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<2> of Norcatur.

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 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 Norcatur:

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