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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 Surprise Creek Colony (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 Surprise Creek Colony. 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 Surprise Creek Colony ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Surprise Creek Colony: Surprise Crk. Colony (or less commonly used: Surprise Ck. Colony or Surprise Cr. Colony)

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 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.

Surprise Creek Colony is located in Judith Basin 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 Judith Basin County: Cascade, Chouteau, Fergus, Meagher & Wheatland.

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

  • Judith Basin County     (The home county of Surprise Creek Colony)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Surprise Creek Colony, with the one closest to Surprise Creek Colony listed first.
    • Stanford
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Geyser
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Windham
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Windham is located in Judith Basin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Windham
    • Arrow Creek
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Arrow Creek is located in Judith Basin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arrow Creek
    • Sapphire Village
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • Sapphire Village is located in Judith Basin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sapphire Village
    • Raynesford
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Moccasin
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Hobson
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Hobson is located in Judith Basin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hobson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 229 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hobson <1>
  • Cascade County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Surprise Creek Colony, with the one closest to Surprise Creek Colony listed first.
    • Monarch
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Neihart
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Armington Junction
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Armington Junction is located in Cascade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Armington Junction
    • Armington
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Armington is located in Cascade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Armington
  • Chouteau County
    • Geraldine
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
  • Fergus County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Surprise Creek Colony, with the one closest to Surprise Creek Colony listed first.
    • Coffee Creek
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Denton
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Danvers
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Danvers is located in Fergus County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Danvers

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

Cemeteries Near Surprise Creek Colony ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Surprise Creek Colony.

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 Surprise Creek Colony - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Surprise Creek Colony Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Stanford Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Geyser Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Lehigh Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Lone Tree Park Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Geer Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Larson Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Benchland Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Strouf Pioneer Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Barker Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Coffee Creek Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • McLeish Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Continue List   (18 more) ...
    • Kibbey Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Utica Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Dry Fork Road Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 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.<2>

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

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

  • Stanford
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Denton
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Monarch
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
  • Neihart
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
  • Armington
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Armington is located in Cascade County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Armington

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

Newspapers Published in Surprise Creek Colony ...

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 Surprise Creek Colony.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Surprise Creek Colony, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Surprise Creek Colony.

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 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 Surprise Creek Colony:

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>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 Surprise Creek Colony, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Surprise Creek Colony) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.