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The Commemorative Quarter for North Dakota





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 Fortuna (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 Fortuna. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Fortuna is located in Divide County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Divide County: Sheridan (MT), Burke & Williams.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Fortuna ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fortuna.

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

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

  • Oslo Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Hillcrest Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hillcrest Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hillcrest Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • East Writing Rock Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the East Writing Rock Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the East Writing Rock Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Skabo Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Westby Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Westby Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Westby Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Westby Catholic Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Westby Catholic Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Westby Catholic Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Daneville Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Daneville Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Daneville Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Ambrose Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ambrose Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ambrose Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Bethel Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Bethel Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Bethel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Sonnenfeld Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
  • St. Cunigundis Catholic Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • McElroy Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the McElroy Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the McElroy Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (39 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Fortuna ...

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 20 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fortuna.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Fortuna. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Fortuna and those printed in the larger area surrounding Fortuna.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3> of Fortuna.

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 helpful 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 Fortuna:

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

The official website for State of North Dakota: https://www.nd.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Fortuna) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Fortuna. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.9105, Longitude: -103.7750    
<4>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.




 

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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.

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025