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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 Fridley (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 Fridley. 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 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.

Fridley is located in Anoka 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 Anoka County: Chisago, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Sherburne & Washington.

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

  • Anoka County     (The home county of Fridley)
  • Carver County
  • Chisago County
  • Dakota County
  • Hennepin County
  • Isanti County
  • Ramsey County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fridley, with the one closest to Fridley listed first.
    • Mounds View
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • New Brighton
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Arden Hills
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Shoreview
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Cardigan Junction
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Cardigan Junction is located in Ramsey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cardigan Junction
    • Falcon Heights
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Lauderdale
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Lauderdale is located in Ramsey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lauderdale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,484 people
    • Roseville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • North Oaks
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Vadnais Heights
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Little Canada
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Gem Lake
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
      • Gem Lake is located in Ramsey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gem Lake
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 536 people
  • Scott County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fridley, with the one closest to Fridley listed first.
    • Savage
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Shakopee
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Prior Lake
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Credit River
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Credit River is located in Scott County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Credit River
    • Marystown
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Sherburne County
  • Washington County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fridley, with the one closest to Fridley listed first.
    • Birchwood Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Birchwood Village is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Birchwood Village
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 880 people
    • Dellwood
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Dellwood is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dellwood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,120 people
    • Mahtomedi
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Hugo
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Pine Springs
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Pine Springs is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Springs
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 390 people
    • Willernie
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Landfall
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Landfall is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Landfall
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 733 people
    • Oakdale
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Oakdale is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oakdale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 27,773 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Oakdale <1>
    • Duluth Junction
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Grant
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Grant is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grant
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,107 people
    • Withrow
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Forest Lake
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
  • Wright County
  • Saint Croix County (WI)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fridley, with the one closest to Fridley listed first.
    • North Hudson
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • North Hudson is located in Saint Croix County (WI)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Hudson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,833 people
    • Hudson
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Hudson is located in Saint Croix County (WI)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hudson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 14,168 people
    • Somerset
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Burkhardt
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Fridley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fridley.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Fridley, with the one closest to Fridley 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 in 1895, Fridley had a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Fridley had a population of 27,857 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Fridley ...

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 374 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fridley.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Fridley. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Fridley and those printed in the larger area surrounding Fridley.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<4> of Fridley.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful 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 Fridley:

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