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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 Litchfield (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 Litchfield. 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 doctors and 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.

Litchfield is located in Meeker County and is the County Seat.

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 Meeker County: Kandiyohi, McLeod, Renville, Stearns & Wright.

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

  • Meeker County     (The home county of Litchfield)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Litchfield, with the one closest to Litchfield listed first.
    • Darwin
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Forest City
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Grove City
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Manannah
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Dassel
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Rosendale
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Kingston
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Kingston is located in Meeker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kingston
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 162 people
    • Cedar Mills
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Eden Valley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Watkins
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Cosmos
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Carver County
  • Kandiyohi County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Litchfield, with the one closest to Litchfield listed first.
    • Atwater
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Kandiyohi
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • Kandiyohi is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kandiyohi
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 477 people
    • Hawick
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Lake Lillian
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Spicer
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Spicer is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spicer
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,224 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Spicer <1>
    • New London
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Regal
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Regal is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Regal
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 35 people
    • Svea
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Willmar
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Wilmar
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Blomkest
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Blomkest is located in Kandiyohi County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blomkest
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 157 people
  • McLeod County
  • Renville County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Litchfield, with the one closest to Litchfield listed first.
    • Buffalo Lake
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Hector
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Bird Island
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Stearns County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Litchfield, with the one closest to Litchfield listed first.
    • Kimball Prairie
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Kimball Prairie is located in Stearns County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kimball Prairie
    • Kimball
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Paynesville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Fairhaven
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Roscoe
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Richmond
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Cold Spring
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Rockville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Saint Martin
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Lake Henry
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Lake Henry is located in Stearns County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Henry
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 113 people
    • Saint Augusta
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Pleasant Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Pleasant Lake is located in Stearns County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant Lake
  • Wright County

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

Cemeteries Near Litchfield ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Litchfield.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Litchfield, with the one closest to Litchfield 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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Litchfield had a population of 1,899 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Litchfield had a population of 6,663 people.

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

  • Darwin
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Forest City
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Grove City
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Greenleaf
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Greenleaf is located in Meeker County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Greenleaf
  • Manannah
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Rosendale
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Dassel
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Kingston
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Kingston is located in Meeker County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kingston
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 162 people
  • Cedar Mills
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
  • Crow River
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Crow River is located in Meeker County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow River
  • Atwater
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Eden Valley
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Litchfield ...

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 110 newspapers that have been published in the area around Litchfield.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 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 Litchfield:

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 Litchfield, 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' (or 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- Litchfield) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.