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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 Bird Island (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 Bird Island. 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 Bird Island ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Bird Island: Bird Is. (in Canada, 'Isld.' is the more common abbreviation.)

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 hospitals 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.

Bird Island is located in Renville 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 Renville County: Brown, Chippewa, Kandiyohi, McLeod, Meeker, Nicollet, Redwood, Sibley & Yellow Medicine.

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

  • Renville County     (The home county of Bird Island)
  • Brown County
    • Evan
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Chippewa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island listed first.
    • Clara City
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Maynard
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Kandiyohi County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island listed first.
    • Lake Lillian
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Blomkest
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Blomkest is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blomkest
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 157 people
    • Roseland
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Svea
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Prinsburg
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Willmar
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Wilmar
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Raymond
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Kandiyohi
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Kandiyohi is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kandiyohi
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 477 people
    • Atwater
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Pennock
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Pennock is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pennock
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 509 people
  • McLeod County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island listed first.
    • Stewart
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Stewart is located in McLeod County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stewart
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 533 people
    • Fernando
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Brownton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Hutchinson
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Biscay
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Meeker County
  • Redwood County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island listed first.
    • North Redwood
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Redwood Falls
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Delhi
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Morgan
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
      • Morgan is located in Redwood County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morgan
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 832 people
    • Belview
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Belview is located in Redwood County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belview
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 352 people
    • Clements
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Clements is located in Redwood County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clements
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 140 people
    • Seaforth
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Wabasso
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Sibley County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island listed first.
    • Gibbon
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Winthrop
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Yellow Medicine County
    • Echo
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Echo is located in Yellow Medicine County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Echo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 247 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Echo <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Bird Island ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bird Island.

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 Bird Island - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Bird Island, with the one closest to Bird Island 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 Bird Island had a population of 441 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Bird Island had a population of 949 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Bird Island ...

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 103 newspapers that have been published in the area around Bird Island.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 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 Bird Island:

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 Bird Island, 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- Bird Island) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.