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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 Lake Crystal (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 Lake Crystal. 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 Lake Crystal ...

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 Lake Crystal: Lk. Crystal

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

Lake Crystal is located in Blue Earth 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 Blue Earth County: Brown, Faribault, Le Sueur, Martin, Nicollet, Waseca & Watonwan.

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

  • Blue Earth County     (The home county of Lake Crystal)
  • Brown County
  • Faribault County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake Crystal, with the one closest to Lake Crystal listed first.
    • Winnebago
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Huntley
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Delavan
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Delavan is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Delavan
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 166 people
    • Minnesota Lake
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Easton
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Easton is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Easton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 183 people
  • Le Sueur County
  • Martin County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake Crystal, with the one closest to Lake Crystal listed first.
    • Truman
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Truman is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Truman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,028 people
    • Northrop
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Granada
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Ormsby
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Ormsby is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ormsby
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 121 people
  • Nicollet County
  • Waseca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake Crystal, with the one closest to Lake Crystal listed first.
    • Alma City
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Janesville
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Elysian
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Waldorf
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Waldorf is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldorf
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
  • Watonwan County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lake Crystal, with the one closest to Lake Crystal listed first.
    • Madelia
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Lewisville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Lewisville is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewisville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 244 people
    • Grogan
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • La Salle
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • La Salle is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Salle
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 86 people
    • Godahl
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Godahl is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Godahl
    • Saint James
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Odin
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Butterfield
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Butterfield is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Butterfield
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 582 people
    • Darfur
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Darfur is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Darfur
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people

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

Cemeteries Near Lake Crystal ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lake Crystal.

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 Lake Crystal - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Lake Crystal Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Holy Family Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Lincoln Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
  • Garden City Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Jerusalem Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Our Saviors Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • North Lincoln Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • St. John Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Minneopa Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Kern's Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Hebron Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (223 more) ...
    • Williams Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Holberg Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Trinity Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Lake Crystal had a population of 824 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Lake Crystal had a population of 2,512 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Lake Crystal ...

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 157 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lake Crystal.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 Lake Crystal:

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 Lake Crystal, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<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 drawn from Point A (ie- Lake Crystal) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.