RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Minnesota >> Koochiching County >> Forest Grove >> 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 Forest Grove (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 Forest Grove. 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 Forest Grove ...

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 Forest Grove: Forest Grv.

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

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 northeast 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 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 east 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.

Forest Grove is located in Koochiching 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 Koochiching County: Beltrami, Itasca, Lake of the Woods & Saint Louis.

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

  • Koochiching County     (The home county of Forest Grove)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Forest Grove, with the one closest to Forest Grove listed first.
    • Mizpah
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
      • Mizpah is located in Koochiching County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mizpah
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 52 people
    • Gemmell
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Gemmell is located in Koochiching County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gemmell
    • Northome
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Margie
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Margie is located in Koochiching County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Margie
    • Big Falls
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
  • Beltrami County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Forest Grove, with the one closest to Forest Grove listed first.
    • Kelliher
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Shooks
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Shooks is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shooks
    • Funkley
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Funkley is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Funkley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 8 people
    • Waskish
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Shotley
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • Shotley is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shotley
    • Saum
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Saum is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saum
    • Langor
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Langor is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Langor
    • Blackduck
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Quiring
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Quiring is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quiring
    • Hines
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Tenstrike
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Itasca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Forest Grove, with the one closest to Forest Grove listed first.
    • Dora Lake
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • Dora Lake is located in Itasca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dora Lake
    • Wirt
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Wirt is located in Itasca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wirt
    • Squaw Lake
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Max
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Spring Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Effie
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Forest Grove ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Forest Grove.

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 Forest Grove - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Forest Grove Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Mizpah Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Oak Hill - Gemmell Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Forest Hill Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Oakum Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • St. Joseph Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Grattan Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Bergville Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • Wildwood Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Margie Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Cormant Twp. Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (26 more) ...
    • Moose Park Twp. Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Foy Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Popple Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 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 Forest Grove. See our List of 1890's Communities around Forest Grove.

Newspapers Published in Forest Grove ...

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 10 newspapers that have been published in the area around Forest Grove.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Forest Grove, there are papers which were published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Forest Grove.

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 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 Forest Grove:

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