RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Minnesota >> Lake County >> Darby Junction >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Darby Junction (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 Darby Junction. 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 Darby Junction ...

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 Darby Junction: Darby Jct. (or less commonly used: Darby Jctn.)

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 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.

Darby Junction is located in Lake 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 Lake County: Cook, Saint Louis, Ashland (WI), Bayfield (WI) & Douglas (WI).

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

  • Lake County     (The home county of Darby Junction)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Darby Junction, with the one closest to Darby Junction listed first.
    • Jordan
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Jordan is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jordan
    • Beaver Crossing
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Beaver Crossing is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beaver Crossing
    • Beaver Bay
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Silver Bay
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Murphy City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Murphy City is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Murphy City
    • Finland
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Stewart
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Stewart is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stewart
    • Illgen City
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Illgen City is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Illgen City
    • Isabella
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Two Harbors
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Little Marais
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Little Marais is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Little Marais
    • Knife River
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Saint Louis County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Darby Junction, with the one closest to Darby Junction listed first.
    • Brimson
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Breda
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
      • Breda is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Breda
    • Allen
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Allen is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allen
      • Allen has also been known as:
      • Allen Junction
    • Babbitt
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Babbitt is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Babbitt
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,471 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Babbitt <1>
    • Hoyt Lakes
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Aurora
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Aurora is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aurora
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,610 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Aurora <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Darby Junction ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Darby Junction.

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 Darby Junction - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Toimi Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Bassett Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Brimson Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Sawtooth Mountain Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Beaver Bay Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Silver Creek Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Silver Bay Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Crystal Bay Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
  • Finland Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
  • Isabella Memorial Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Lakeview Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Holy Spirit Catholic Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Argo Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)

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.<4>

While we didn't find Darby Junction in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Darby Junction.

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

  • Beaver Bay
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Two Harbors
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Hinsdale
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Hinsdale is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hinsdale

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

Newspapers Published in Darby Junction ...

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 22 newspapers that have been published in the area around Darby Junction.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Darby Junction, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Darby Junction.

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 Darby Junction:

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Darby Junction) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<4>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 Darby Junction, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.