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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 Dry 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 Dry 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 Dry 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.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Dry Lake: Dry Lk.

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 and doctors 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.

Dry Lake is located in Blaine County.

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

  • Blaine County     (The home county of Dry Lake)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dry Lake, with the one closest to Dry Lake listed first.
    • Pine Grove
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Grove
      • Pine Grove is located in Blaine County
    • Hays
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Lodge Pole
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lodge Pole have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lodge Pole
      • Lodge Pole is located in Blaine County
    • Fort Belknap Agency
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • 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
  • Phillips County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dry Lake, with the one closest to Dry Lake listed first.
    • Zortman
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Dodson
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dodson have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dodson
      • Dodson is located in Phillips County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 116 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Dodson <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Dry Lake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Dry 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.

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 Dry Lake covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Hays Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hays Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hays Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Pauls Mission Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Lodge Pole Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • McConnell Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the McConnell Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the McConnell Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Chopwoid Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Chopwoid Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Chopwoid Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Big Warm Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Big Warm Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Big Warm Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Kirkaldie Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Kirkaldie Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Kirkaldie Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Messerly Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Messerly Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Messerly Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Landusky Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Landusky Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Landusky Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Zortman Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Zortman Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Zortman Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Pike Landusky Gravesite
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • Midale Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Midale Cemetery
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Midale Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #20997 <3>
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Graveyard Hill Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Graveyard Hill Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Graveyard Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Ft. Belknap Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ft. Belknap Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ft. Belknap Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)

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>

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

  • Savoy
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Savoy have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Savoy
    • Savoy is located in Blaine County

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

Newspapers Published in Dry 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 2 newspapers that have been published in the area around Dry Lake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Dry Lake, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Dry Lake.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Dry Lake:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Dry Lake. 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>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>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<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 Dry Lake, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>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- Dry Lake) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Dry Lake. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.0511, Longitude: -108.6465       In this case, the coordinates for Dry Lake have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025