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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 Grass Range (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 Grass Range. 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 Grass Range ...

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.

Another variation: Grassrange.

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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Grass Range is located in Fergus 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 Fergus County: Blaine, Chouteau, Golden Valley, Judith Basin, Musselshell, Petroleum, Phillips & Wheatland.

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

  • Fergus County     (The home county of Grass Range)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grass Range, with the one closest to Grass Range listed first.
    • Forestgrove
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Fort Maginnis ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Fort Maginnis is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Maginnis
    • Giltedge ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Giltedge is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Giltedge
    • Heath
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Heath is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heath
    • Roy
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Maiden
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Maiden is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maiden
    • Roy Junction
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Roy Junction is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roy Junction
    • Hilger
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Lewistown Heights
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Lewistown Heights is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewistown Heights
    • Lewistown
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Petroleum County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grass Range, with the one closest to Grass Range listed first.
    • Teigen
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Winnett
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Grass Range ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Grass Range.

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 Grass Range - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Grass Range Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Dengel Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Ayers Ranch Colony Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Forest Grove Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Tyler Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Ft. Maginnis Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Great Divide Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Great Divide Cemetery
    • The Great Divide Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Piper Cemetery
  • Gilt Edge Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
  • Winnett City Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winnett City Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Winnett City Cemetery is located outside and to the north of Winnett.
    • The Winnett City Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Winnett Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1995948 <2>
  • Pine Grove Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Roy Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
  • Flatwillow Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flatwillow Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Flatwillow Cemetery is located 12 miles [19.3 km]<3> to the south of Winnett.
    • The Flatwillow Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Flat Willow Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2329158 <2>
  • Continue List   (5 more) ...
    • Hilger Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Calvary Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)

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.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Grass Range had a population of 21 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Grass Range had a population of 105 people.

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

  • Fort Maginnis ‑ Historic
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Fort Maginnis is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Maginnis
  • Maiden
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Maiden is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maiden

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Grass Range ...

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 21 newspapers that have been published in the area around Grass Range.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Grass Range. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Grass Range and those printed in the larger area surrounding Grass Range.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Grass Range.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Grass Range:

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 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.
<3>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- Grass Range) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>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 Grass Range, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.