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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 Sugar 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 Sugar 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 Sugar 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 Sugar Lake: Sugar Lk.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Sugar Lake. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Sugar Lake.

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 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.

Sugar Lake is located in Platte County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Platte County: Atchison (KS), Leavenworth (KS), Wyandotte (KS), Buchanan, Clay, Clinton & Jackson.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Sugar Lake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sugar 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 Sugar Lake - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Sugar Lake, with the one closest to Sugar Lake 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 in 1895, Sugar Lake had a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Dalbey
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Dalbey is located in Atchison County (KS)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dalbey
  • Port Williams
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Iatan
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Iatan is located in Platte County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Iatan
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 56 people
  • Oak Mills
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Dye
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Dye is located in Platte County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dye
  • Rushville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Winthrop
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Winthrop is located in Buchanan County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winthrop
  • Atchison
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • De Kalb
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • De Kalb is located in Buchanan County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for De Kalb
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 222 people
  • Potter
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Kickapoo
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Halls
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Halls is located in Buchanan County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Halls
  • Continue List   (18 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in Sugar 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 165 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sugar Lake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Sugar Lake, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Sugar 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 Sugar 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>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 Sugar Lake, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Sugar Lake) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.