RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Montana >> Flathead County >> Ashley >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Ashley. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Ashley to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Ashley, please Contact Us.


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 Ashley (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 Ashley. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Although our information shows that the community of Ashley is historic, it would have been located within present day Flathead County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Flathead County: Glacier, Lake, Lewis and Clark, Lincoln, Missoula, Pondera, Powell, Sanders & Teton.

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

  • Flathead County     (The home county of Ashley)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ashley, with the one closest to Ashley listed first.
    • Kalispell
      (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Evergreen
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Forest Hill Village
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Forest Hill Village is located in Flathead County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest Hill Village
    • Kila
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Rhodes
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Rhodes is located in Flathead County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rhodes
    • Creston
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Somers
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Lakeside
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Halfmoon
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • Halfmoon is located in Flathead County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Halfmoon
    • Columbia Falls
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Bigfork
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Whitefish
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Lake County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ashley, with the one closest to Ashley listed first.
    • Lake Mary Ronan
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Lake Mary Ronan is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Mary Ronan
    • Woods Bay
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • Woods Bay is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woods Bay
    • Proctor
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Rollins
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Dayton
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Bear Dance
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
      • Bear Dance is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bear Dance
    • Elmo
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Big Arm
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Swan Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Kings Point
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Kings Point is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kings Point
  • Sanders County
    • Niarada
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Niarada is located in Sanders County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Niarada

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

Cemeteries Near Ashley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ashley.

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

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

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

  • Demersville Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Conrad Memorial Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Glacier Memorial Gardens
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Trinity Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Spring Creek Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Bethel Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Creston Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creston Cemetery
    • The Creston Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Creston Community Cemetery
    • Union Cemetery
  • St. Richard Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Lone Pine Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Soldiers Home Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (7 more) ...
    • Woodlawn Cemetery
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Bigfork Community Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bigfork Community Cemetery
      • The Bigfork Community Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Big Fork Community Cemetery
      • Swan View Memorial Gardens
    • Bethany Lutheran Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)

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.

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

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

  • Kalispell
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Holt
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Holt is located in Flathead County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holt
  • Columbia Falls
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Ashley ...

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 36 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ashley.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ashley, 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 Ashley.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Ashley:

Footnotes ...

<1>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 Ashley, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Ashley) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.