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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of North Dakota >> Ward County >> Aurelia >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Aurelia (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 Aurelia. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

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 north 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.

Aurelia is located in Ward County.

To see how the shape of North Dakota's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Ward County: Burke, McHenry, McLean, Mountrail & Renville.

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

  • Ward County     (The home county of Aurelia)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Aurelia, with the one closest to Aurelia listed first.
    • Donnybrook
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Carpio
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Berthold
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Kenmare
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Foxholm
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Foxholm is located in Ward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foxholm
    • Lonetree
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Niobe
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Niobe is located in Ward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Niobe
    • Des Lacs
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Burlington
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Ruthville
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Ruthville is located in Ward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ruthville
  • Bottineau County
    • Lansford
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Burke County
    • Bowbells
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Mountrail County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Aurelia, with the one closest to Aurelia listed first.
    • Coulee
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Coulee is located in Mountrail County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coulee
    • Blaisdell
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Palermo
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Stanley
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Belden
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Belden is located in Mountrail County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belden
    • Plaza
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Plaza is located in Mountrail County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plaza
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 211 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Plaza <1>
  • Renville County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Aurelia, with the one closest to Aurelia listed first.
    • Grano
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Grano is located in Renville County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grano
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 6 people
    • Norma
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Norma is located in Renville County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Norma
    • Tolley
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Mohall
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Aurelia ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Aurelia.

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

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

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

  • Moravian Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • St. Anthony Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Holbrook Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Zion Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Johnson Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Johns Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Greenbush Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Nazareth Lutheran Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Wild Rose Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Valla Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Rose Hill Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rose Hill Cemetery
    • The Rose Hill Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Rosehill Cemetery
  • Grano Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (37 more) ...

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

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

  • Berthold
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Des Lacs
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Stanley
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
  • Burlington
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Aurelia ...

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 33 newspapers that have been published in the area around Aurelia.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Aurelia, 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 Aurelia.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start 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 Aurelia:

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 Aurelia, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Aurelia) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.