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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 Jefferson Island (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 Jefferson Island. 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 Jefferson Island ...

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 Jefferson Island: Jefferson Is. (in Canada, 'Isld.' is the more common abbreviation.)

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 southwest 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 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.

Jefferson Island is located in Madison 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 Madison County: Fremont (ID), Beaverhead, Gallatin, Jefferson & Silver Bow.

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

  • Madison County     (The home county of Jefferson Island)
  • Broadwater County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Jefferson Island, with the one closest to Jefferson Island listed first.
    • Copper City
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Copper City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Copper City
      • Copper City is located in Broadwater County
    • Crow Creek City ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Crow Creek City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow Creek City
      • Crow Creek City is located in Broadwater County
    • Radersburg
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Gallatin County
  • Jefferson County
  • Silver Bow County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Jefferson Island, with the one closest to Jefferson Island listed first.
    • Janney
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Highland City ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Highland City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Highland City
      • Highland City is located in Silver Bow County
    • Butte
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
    • Moose Town
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Moose Town have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moose Town
      • Moose Town is located in Silver Bow County

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

Cemeteries Near Jefferson Island ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Jefferson Island.

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

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

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.<6>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Jefferson Island had railroad service and no post office.

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

  • Whitehall
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Whitehall have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whitehall
    • Whitehall is located in Jefferson County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,160 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Whitehall <2>
  • Harrison
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Pony ‑ Historic
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • Willow Creek
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Pipestone
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Three Forks
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Three Forks have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Three Forks
    • Three Forks is located in Gallatin County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,043 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Three Forks <2>
  • Silver Star
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
  • Gallatin ‑ Historic
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Gallatin have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gallatin
    • Gallatin is located in Gallatin County
  • Norris
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Red Bluff
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Highview
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Highview have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Highview
    • Highview is located in Silver Bow County
  • Logan
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Logan have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Logan
    • Logan is located in Gallatin County
  • Continue List   (10 more) ...
    • Boulder
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Woodville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Woodville have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodville
      • Woodville is located in Jefferson County
    • Twin Bridges
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Twin Bridges have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin Bridges
      • Twin Bridges is located in Madison County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 434 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Twin Bridges <2>

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

Newspapers Published in Jefferson Island ...

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 75 newspapers that have been published in the area around Jefferson Island.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Jefferson Island, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Jefferson Island.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Jefferson Island:

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

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<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 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.
<4>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- Jefferson Island) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Jefferson Island. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 45.8518, Longitude: -111.9405    
<5>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.
<6>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 Jefferson Island, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025