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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 Walker (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 Walker. 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 southwest 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 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 west 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.

Walker is located in Cass 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 Cass County: Aitkin, Beltrami, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Morrison, Todd & Wadena.

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

  • Cass County     (The home county of Walker)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Walker, with the one closest to Walker listed first.
    • Ah-gwah-ching
      (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
      • Ah-gwah-ching is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ah-gwah-ching
    • Whipholt
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
      • Whipholt is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whipholt
    • North Central Cass
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
      • North Central Cass is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Central Cass
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 29 people
    • Hackensack
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Cass Lake
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Federal Dam
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Backus
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Longville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Boy River
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Boy River is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boy River
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 51 people
    • Ryan Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Ryan Village is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ryan Village
    • Wabedo
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Wabedo is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wabedo
    • Bena
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Chickamaw Beach
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • Chickamaw Beach is located in Cass County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chickamaw Beach
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 110 people
  • Becker County
    • Two Inlets
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Two Inlets is located in Becker County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Two Inlets
  • Beltrami County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Walker, with the one closest to Walker listed first.
    • Rosby
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Rosby is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosby
    • Pennington
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Bemidji
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Lavinia
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Lavinia is located in Beltrami County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lavinia
  • Hubbard County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Walker, with the one closest to Walker listed first.
    • Benedict
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Benedict is located in Hubbard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Benedict
    • Akeley
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Laporte
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Nevis
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Dorset
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Dorset is located in Hubbard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dorset
    • Lake George
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Park Rapids
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Walker ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Walker.

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

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

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

  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Pagan Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Medicine Rite Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • St. Agnes Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Golden Gate Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Hope Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Akeley Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Finnelly Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • St. Theodores Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Lakeport Twp. Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Hillcrest Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • White Cloud Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (52 more) ...
    • White Oak Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Green Lea Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Zion Memorial Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)

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>

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

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

  • Hackensack
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
  • Park Rapids
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Hubbard
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Hubbard is located in Hubbard County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hubbard
  • Pine River
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Walker ...

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 69 newspapers that have been published in the area around Walker.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Walker. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Walker and those printed in the larger area surrounding Walker.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3> of Walker.

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 Walker:

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 Walker, 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 drawn from Point A (ie- Walker) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.