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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 Soudan (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 Soudan. 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.

Soudan 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 Soudan. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Soudan:

  • Saint Louis County     (The home county of Soudan)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Soudan, with the one closest to Soudan listed first.
    • Tower Junction
      (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
      • Tower Junction is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower Junction
    • Tower
      (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
      • Tower is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 477 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tower <1>
    • Embarrass
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Babbitt
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Babbitt is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Babbitt
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,471 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Babbitt <1>
    • Ely
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Ely is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ely
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,325 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ely <1>
    • Hoyt Lakes
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Britt
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Angora
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Aurora
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • Aurora is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aurora
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,610 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Aurora <1>
    • Biwabik
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Pineville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • Pineville is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pineville
    • Belgrade
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near Soudan ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Soudan.

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

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

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

  • Lake View Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Vermilion Lake Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Old Vermilion Lake Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Embarrass Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Armanda Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Pike River Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Argo Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • West Pike Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Sandy Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Florenton Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Birch Lake Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Idington Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Czechoslovakian National Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Ely Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Hillside Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Soudan had a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Tower
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
    • Tower is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 477 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tower <1>
  • Tower Junction
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
    • Tower Junction is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower Junction
  • Hinsdale
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
    • Hinsdale is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hinsdale
  • Ely
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Ely is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ely
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,325 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ely <1>
  • Midway
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • 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 Soudan. See our List of 1890's Communities around Soudan.

Newspapers Published in Soudan ...

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 48 newspapers that have been published in the area around Soudan.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Soudan, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Soudan.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Soudan:

  • Genealogy information for nearby counties

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 Soudan, 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' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Soudan) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.