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 Penasse (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 Penasse. 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 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.

Penasse is located in Lake of the Woods County.

To see how the shape of Minnesota's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lake of the Woods County: Beltrami, Koochiching & Roseau.

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

• Lake of the Woods County     (The home county of Penasse)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Penasse, with the one closest to Penasse listed first.
  • Angle Inlet
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Angle Inlet have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Angle Inlet
    • Angle Inlet is located in Lake of the Woods County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Angle Inlet <2>
  • Long Point
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Long Point have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Long Point
    • Long Point is located in Lake of the Woods County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 40 people

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

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 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 Penasse:

• Websites specific to Minnesota
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the Minnesota State Archives

• Pages specific to Lake of the Woods County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Minnesota
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Minnesota
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Minnesota
  • Cemeteries of Lake of the Woods County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Minnesota
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Minnesota
  • Cemeteries of Lake of the Woods County

Cemeteries Near Penasse ...

We're sorry, but we don't know of any cemeteries in the area around Penasse.

This is a new section of our Gazetteer and we're still collecting data about cemeteries and their location. If you know of a cemetery that should be included, please let us know.

We are looking for information such as the name of the cemetery, its GPS location, whether the cemetery is still in use or if it is historic (ie- defunct, abandoned,  etc.). If it applies, we would also like to learn of any past or alternate names that the cemetery has been known by.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our collection of Genealogy Websites.

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Penasse. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for Lake of the Woods County: www.co.lake-of-the-woods.mn.us/

The official website for State of Minnesota: https://mn.gov/