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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 Alma City (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 Alma City. 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 doctors 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.

Alma City is located in Waseca County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Waseca County: Blue Earth, Faribault, Freeborn, Le Sueur, Rice & Steele.

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

  • Waseca County     (The home county of Alma City)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City listed first.
    • Janesville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Waldorf
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Waldorf is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldorf
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
    • Wilton
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Wilton is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wilton
    • Waseca
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Elysian
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Palmer
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Vista
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • New Richland
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Blue Earth County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City listed first.
    • Pemberton
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
      • Pemberton is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pemberton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 241 people
    • Saint Clair
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Smiths Mill
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
      • Smiths Mill is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smiths Mill
    • Beauford
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Eagle Lake
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Madison Lake
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Mapleton
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Mankato
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Mankato is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mankato
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 43,435 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Mankato <1>
    • Skyline
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Skyline is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Skyline
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 299 people
    • Good Thunder
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Rapidan
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Garden City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Vernon Center
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Vernon Center is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vernon Center
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 313 people
  • Faribault County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City listed first.
    • Minnesota Lake
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Wells
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • Wells is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wells
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,157 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wells <1>
    • Easton
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Easton is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Easton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 183 people
    • Delavan
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Delavan is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Delavan
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 166 people
    • Winnebago
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Dell
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Walters
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Walters is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walters
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 67 people
  • Freeborn County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City listed first.
    • Freeborn
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Hartland
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Hartland is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hartland
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 307 people
    • Bath
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Manchester
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Manchester is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manchester
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 55 people
    • Alden
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Clarks Grove
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Geneva
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Conger
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
      • Conger is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Conger
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 144 people
  • Le Sueur County
  • Nicollet County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City listed first.
    • North Mankato
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Saint Peter
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Oshawa
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Nicollet
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Rice County
  • Steele County

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

Cemeteries Near Alma City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Alma City.

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 Alma City - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Alma City, with the one closest to Alma City 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 Alma City had a population of 165 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Alma City ...

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 147 newspapers that have been published in the area around Alma City.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Alma City, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Alma City.

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 Alma City:

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 Alma City, 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' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Alma City) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.