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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 Cass 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 Cass 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 Cass 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 Cass Lake: Cass Lk.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Cass Lake. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Cass Lake.

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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and 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.

Cass Lake is located in Cass 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 Cass County: Aitkin, Beltrami, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Morrison, Todd & Wadena.

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

  • Cass County     (The home county of Cass Lake)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cass Lake, with the one closest to Cass Lake listed first.
    • Ryan Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Ryan Village is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ryan Village
    • North Central Cass
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • North Central Cass is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Central Cass
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 29 people
    • Bena
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Walker
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Federal Dam
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Ah-gwah-ching
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Ah-gwah-ching is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ah-gwah-ching
    • Whipholt
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Whipholt is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whipholt
    • Boy River
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Boy River is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boy River
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 51 people
  • Beltrami County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cass Lake, with the one closest to Cass Lake listed first.
    • Pennington
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Rosby
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
      • Rosby is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosby
    • Lavinia
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Lavinia is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lavinia
    • Bemidji
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Turtle River
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Turtle River is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turtle River
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 80 people
    • Tenstrike
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Wilton
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Wilton is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wilton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 295 people
    • Hines
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Blackduck
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Puposky
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Puposky is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Puposky
    • Solway
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Langor
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Langor is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Langor
    • Pinewood
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Pinewood is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinewood
  • Hubbard County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cass Lake, with the one closest to Cass Lake listed first.
    • Laporte
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Benedict
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Benedict is located in Hubbard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Benedict
    • Lake George
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Akeley
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Nevis
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Itasca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cass Lake, with the one closest to Cass Lake listed first.
    • Squaw Lake
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Max
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Cass Lake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Cass 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 Cass Lake - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Pine Grove Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Thompson Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Farris Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Ten Lake Twp. Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Green Lea Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Zion Memorial Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • East Side Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Malvik Lutheran Church Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • John Brown Cutback Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Lawrence Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Guthrie Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Aardahl Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (57 more) ...
    • Nary Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Sugar Bush Twp. Cemetery
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • South Arm Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Arm Cemetery
      • The South Arm Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Turtle River Twp. Cemetery

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Cass 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 56 newspapers that have been published in the area around Cass Lake.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Cass Lake. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Cass Lake and those printed in the larger area surrounding Cass Lake.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Cass Lake.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Cass 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Cass Lake) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.