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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 Hope (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 Hope. 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 northwest 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 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 west 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.

Hope is located in Steele 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 Steele County: Dodge, Freeborn, Goodhue, Mower, Rice & Waseca.

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

  • Steele County     (The home county of Hope)
  • Blue Earth County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Pemberton
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Pemberton is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pemberton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 241 people
    • Smiths Mill
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Smiths Mill is located in Blue Earth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smiths Mill
    • Saint Clair
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Dodge County
  • Faribault County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Wells
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Wells is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wells
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,157 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wells <1>
    • Minnesota Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Freeborn County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Geneva
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Bath
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Clarks Grove
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Hollandale
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Hartland
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Hartland is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hartland
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 307 people
    • Manchester
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
      • Manchester is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manchester
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 55 people
    • Freeborn
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Hayward
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Oakland
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Oakland is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oakland
    • Albert Lea
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Alden
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Glenville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Conger
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Conger is located in Freeborn County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Conger
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 144 people
  • Goodhue County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Kenyon
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Roscoe
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Le Sueur County
  • Mower County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Lansing
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Waltham
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Mapleview
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Mapleview is located in Mower County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mapleview
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 177 people
    • Austin
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Brownsdale
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Sargeant
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Renova ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Varco
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Rice County
  • Waseca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hope, with the one closest to Hope listed first.
    • Vista
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • New Richland
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Waseca
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Wilton
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Wilton is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wilton
    • Palmer
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Waldorf
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Waldorf is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldorf
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
    • Alma City
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
    • Janesville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Elysian
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Hope ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Hope.

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

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

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

  • Oak Mound Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Danish Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Steele Center Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Zion Lutheran Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Bohemian Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Berlin Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Holy Trinity Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Lemond Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Danish Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Ansgars Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Degner Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Otisco - Lemond Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (228 more) ...

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.<2>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Hope ...

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 163 newspapers that have been published in the area around Hope.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Hope, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Hope.

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 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 Hope:

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>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 Hope, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>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- Hope) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.