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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Piper (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 Piper. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals 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.

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

  • Fergus County     (The home county of Piper)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Piper, with the one closest to Piper listed first.
    • Heath
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
      • Heath is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heath
    • Forestgrove
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Giltedge ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Giltedge is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Giltedge
    • Lewistown
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Fort Maginnis ‑ Historic
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Fort Maginnis is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Maginnis
    • Maiden
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Maiden is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maiden
    • Lewistown Heights
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Lewistown Heights is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewistown Heights
    • Glengarry
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • Glengarry is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Glengarry
    • Grass Range
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Hilger
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Roy Junction
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Roy Junction is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roy Junction
    • Kendall ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Kendall is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kendall
  • Petroleum County

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

Cemeteries Near Piper ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Piper.

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 Piper - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Great Divide Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Great Divide Cemetery
    • The Great Divide Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Piper Cemetery
  • Forest Grove Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Gilt Edge Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Ayers Ranch Colony Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Lewistown Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Ft. Maginnis Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Pine Grove Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Central Montana Memorial Gardens
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Beaver Creek Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Hilger Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Dengel Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (9 more) ...
    • Grass Range Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Tyler Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Moore Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 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.<3>

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

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

  • Lewistown
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Fort Maginnis ‑ Historic
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Fort Maginnis is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Maginnis
  • Maiden
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Maiden is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maiden
  • Cottonwood
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Cottonwood is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottonwood
  • Grass Range
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Christina
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Christina is located in Fergus County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Christina

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

Newspapers Published in Piper ...

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 24 newspapers that have been published in the area around Piper.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Piper, there are papers which were published within 23 miles [37 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Piper.

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 Piper:

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