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The Commemorative Quarter for Montana





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 Chinook (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 Chinook. 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 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.

Chinook is located in Blaine County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Blaine County: Chouteau, Fergus, Hill & Phillips.

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

  • Blaine County     (The home county of Chinook)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Chinook, with the one closest to Chinook listed first.
    • Zurich
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Harlem
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Lloyd
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Fort Belknap Agency
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fort Belknap Agency have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Belknap Agency
      • Fort Belknap Agency is located in Blaine County
    • Cherry Ridge ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cherry Ridge
      • Cherry Ridge is located in Blaine County
      • Cherry Ridge has also been known as:
      • Cherry Ridge Ranch
  • Hill County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Chinook, with the one closest to Chinook listed first.
    • Saddle Butte
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Saddle Butte have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saddle Butte
      • Saddle Butte is located in Hill County
    • Havre
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • West Havre
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for West Havre have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Havre
      • West Havre is located in Hill County
    • Beaver Creek
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Beaver Creek have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beaver Creek
      • Beaver Creek is located in Hill County
    • Herron
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Herron have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Herron
      • Herron is located in Hill County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Chinook ...

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 30 newspapers that have been published in the area around Chinook.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Chinook. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Chinook and those printed in the larger area surrounding Chinook.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<3> of Chinook.

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 Chinook:

Cemeteries Near Chinook ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Chinook.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

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

  • Kuper Memorial Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • St. Gabriel Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Gabriel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Gabriel Cemetery
  • Bethel Bruderthaler Mennonite Church Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • East End Colony Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • Prairie Chapel United Brethren Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Harlem Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Harlem Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Harlem Cemetery
  • North Havre Lutheran Church Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the North Havre Lutheran Church Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the North Havre Lutheran Church Cemetery
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Mt. Hope Cemetery is located outside and to the west of Havre.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mt. Hope Cemetery
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Calvary Cemetery is located in Havre.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Calvary Cemetery
  • Highland Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Cleveland Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Agency Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Agency Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Agency Cemetery
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Dalke Grave
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Dalke Grave have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Dalke Grave
    • Sunset Garden Park Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunset Garden Park Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunset Garden Park Cemetery
    • Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)

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.<5>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Chinook had a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Chinook had a population of 1,230 people.

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

  • Zurich
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Harlem
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Havre
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Chinook. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for State of Montana: https://mt.gov/

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 location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Chinook) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Chinook. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.5909, Longitude: -109.2310    
<4>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.
<5>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 Chinook, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024