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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 Rocky Point (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 Rocky Point. 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 Rocky Point ...

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 occur.

Another variation: Rockypoint.

  • A typical abbreviation for Rocky Point: Rocky Pt.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Rocky Point. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Rocky Point.

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.

Rocky Point is located in Lake 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 Lake County: Flathead, Missoula & Sanders.

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

  • Lake County     (The home county of Rocky Point)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rocky Point, with the one closest to Rocky Point listed first.
    • Jette
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
      • Jette is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jette
    • Kings Point
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Kings Point is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kings Point
    • Kerr
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
      • Kerr is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kerr
    • Polson
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Finley Point
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Finley Point is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Finley Point
    • Big Arm
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Turtle Lake
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Turtle Lake is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turtle Lake
    • Pablo
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Dayton
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Elmo
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Rollins
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Proctor
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Flathead County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rocky Point, with the one closest to Rocky Point listed first.
    • Lakeside
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Bigfork
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Somers
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Bear Creek Village
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Bear Creek Village is located in Flathead County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bear Creek Village
    • Forest Hill Village
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Forest Hill Village is located in Flathead County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest Hill Village
    • Kila
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Missoula County
  • Sanders County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rocky Point, with the one closest to Rocky Point listed first.
    • Niarada
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Niarada is located in Sanders County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Niarada
    • Lonepine
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Hot Springs
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Agency
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Agency is located in Sanders County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agency
    • Old Agency
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Old Agency is located in Sanders County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Agency
    • Dixon
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near Rocky Point ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Rocky Point.

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 Rocky Point - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Lakeview Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Hospital Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Polson Catholic Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Indian Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Indian Cemetery is located outside and to the west of Dayton.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #20940 <2>
  • Ronan Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Niarada Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
  • McKay Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Murray Memorial Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Moore Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Ventling Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
  • Markle Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Maillet Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Bethany Lutheran Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Bigfork Community Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bigfork Community Cemetery
      • The Bigfork Community Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Big Fork Community Cemetery
      • Swan View Memorial Gardens

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 Rocky Point in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Rocky Point.

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

  • Holt
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Holt is located in Flathead County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holt
  • Saint Ignatius
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)

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

Newspapers Published in Rocky Point ...

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 Rocky Point.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Rocky Point, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Rocky Point.

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 Rocky Point:

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 Rocky Point, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Rocky Point) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.