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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 Ash Lake (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 Ash Lake. 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.

Name Variations for Ash Lake ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Ash Lake: Ash Lk.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Ash Lake is located in Saint Louis 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 Saint Louis County: Aitkin, Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake & Douglas (WI).

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

  • Saint Louis County     (The home county of Ash Lake)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ash Lake, with the one closest to Ash Lake listed first.
    • Orr
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
      • Orr is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orr
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 332 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Orr <1>
    • Nett Lake
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Nett Lake is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nett Lake
    • Kabetogama
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Gheen Corner
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Gheen Corner is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gheen Corner
    • Crane Lake
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Cook
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Cook is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cook
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 562 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Cook <1>
  • Koochiching County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ash Lake, with the one closest to Ash Lake listed first.
    • Ericsburg
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Ericsburg is located in Koochiching County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ericsburg
    • Island View
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Island View is located in Koochiching County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Island View

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

Cemeteries Near Ash Lake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ash Lake.

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 Ash Lake - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Leiding Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Greaney Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Forest Home Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Bois Forte Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
  • Silverdale Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
  • Lyman Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Ray Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Willow Valley Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
  • St.s Peter & Paul Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
  • Celina Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (7 more) ...
    • Dentaybow Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Carpenter Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Little Fork Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)

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

Newspapers Published in Ash Lake ...

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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ash Lake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ash Lake, 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 Ash Lake.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Ash Lake:

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