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 Hays (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 Hays. 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 southwest 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 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 west 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.

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

• Blaine County     (The home county of Hays)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Hays, with the one closest to Hays listed first.
  • Pine Grove
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Grove
    • Pine Grove is located in Blaine County
  • Lodge Pole
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lodge Pole have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lodge Pole
    • Lodge Pole is located in Blaine County
• Phillips County
  • Zortman
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zortman
    • Zortman is located in Phillips County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Zortman <2>

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

Newspapers Published in Hays ...

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 1 newspapers that have been published in the area around Hays.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Hays, there are papers which were published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Hays.

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 Hays:

• Websites specific to Montana
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the Montana Historical Society

• Pages specific to Blaine County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Phillips County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Montana
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Montana
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Montana
  • Cemeteries of Blaine County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Montana
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Montana
  • Cemeteries of Blaine County

Cemeteries Near Hays ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Hays.

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

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

• Hays Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hays Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hays Cemetery
• St. Pauls Mission Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Pauls Mission Cemetery
• McConnell Cemetery
  (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the McConnell Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the McConnell Cemetery
• Landusky Cemetery
  (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Landusky Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Landusky Cemetery
• Pike Landusky Gravesite
  (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pike Landusky Gravesite
• Zortman Cemetery
  (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Zortman Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Zortman Cemetery
• Big Warm Cemetery
  (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Big Warm Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Big Warm Cemetery
• Chopwoid Cemetery
  (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Chopwoid Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Chopwoid Cemetery
• Kirkaldie Cemetery
  (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Kirkaldie Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Kirkaldie Cemetery
• Messerly Cemetery
  (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Messerly Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Messerly Cemetery
• Midale Cemetery
  (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Midale Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Midale Cemetery
• Cleveland Cemetery
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Cleveland Cemetery

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

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