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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 Audubon (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 Audubon. 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 doctors 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.

Audubon is located in Becker 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 Becker County: Clay, Clearwater, Hubbard, Mahnomen, Norman, Otter Tail & Wadena.

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

  • Becker County     (The home county of Audubon)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Audubon, with the one closest to Audubon listed first.
    • Lake Park
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Detroit Lakes
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Callaway
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Richwood
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Richwood is located in Becker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richwood
    • Bucks Mill
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Cormorant
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Rochert
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Ogema
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Ogema is located in Becker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ogema
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 183 people
    • Frazee
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • White Earth
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Evergreen
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Elbow Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Elbow Lake is located in Becker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elbow Lake
    • Pine Point
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Pine Point is located in Becker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Point
  • Clay County
  • Mahnomen County
    • Waubun
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
  • Norman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Audubon, with the one closest to Audubon listed first.
    • Flom
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Faith
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Twin Valley
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Twin Valley is located in Norman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin Valley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 750 people
  • Otter Tail County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Audubon, with the one closest to Audubon listed first.
    • Vergas
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Pelican Rapids
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Dent
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Dent is located in Otter Tail County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dent
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 185 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Dent <1>
    • Erhard
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Perham
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Perham is located in Otter Tail County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Perham
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,638 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Perham <1>
    • Edwards
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Richville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Rothsay
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Wilkin County

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

Cemeteries Near Audubon ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Audubon.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Audubon, with the one closest to Audubon 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 Audubon had a population of 159 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Audubon had a population of 517 people.

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

  • Lake Park
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Cormorant
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Bucks Mill
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Richwood
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Richwood is located in Becker County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richwood
  • Winnipeg Junction
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Winnipeg Junction is located in Clay County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winnipeg Junction
  • Rollag
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Hitterdal
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Hitterdal is located in Clay County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hitterdal
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 213 people
  • Hawley
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Frazee
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Tansem
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Tansem is located in Clay County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tansem
  • White Earth
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Ulen
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Continue List   (17 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Audubon ...

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 53 newspapers that have been published in the area around Audubon.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Audubon. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Audubon and those printed in the larger area surrounding Audubon.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Audubon.

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 Audubon:

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 Audubon, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Audubon) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.