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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Minnesota >> Saint Louis County >> Side Lake >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Side Lake (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 Side Lake. 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 Side Lake ...

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 Side Lake: Side Lk.

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.

Side Lake is located in Saint Louis 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 Saint Louis County: Aitkin, Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake & Douglas (WI).

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

  • Saint Louis County     (The home county of Side Lake)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Side Lake, with the one closest to Side Lake listed first.
    • Bear River
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
      • Bear River is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bear River
    • Chisholm
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Ruby Junction
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Ruby Junction is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ruby Junction
    • Buhl
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Buhl is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buhl
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 969 people
    • Hibbing
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Hibbing is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hibbing
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 15,716 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hibbing <1>
    • Kinney
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Kinney is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kinney
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 144 people
    • Scott
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • Scott is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scott
    • Angora
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Cook
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Cook is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cook
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 562 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Cook <1>
    • Mountain Iron
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Britt
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Gheen Corner
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Gheen Corner is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gheen Corner
  • Itasca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Side Lake, with the one closest to Side Lake listed first.
    • Keewatin
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Keewatin is located in Itasca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Keewatin
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,010 people
    • Nashwauk
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Pengilly
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Calumet
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Marble
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Taconite
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Taconite is located in Itasca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Taconite
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 629 people
    • Bigfork
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)

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

Cemeteries Near Side Lake ...

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

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

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

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

  • Morcom Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Bearville Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Chisholm Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Carpenter Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Celina Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Alango Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Old Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Hibbing Park Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Lake View Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake View Cemetery
    • The Lake View Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Lakeview Cemetery
  • Keewatin Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Maple Hill Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • St.s Peter & Paul Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (28 more) ...
    • Idington Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Little Fork Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Willow Valley Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 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.<3>

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

  • Midway
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Midway is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midway

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

Newspapers Published in Side Lake ...

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 60 newspapers that have been published in the area around Side Lake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Side Lake, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Side Lake.

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 Side Lake:

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 Side Lake, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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 from Point A (ie- Side Lake) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.