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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 Grassna (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 Grassna. 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 and hospitals 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.

Grassna is located in Emmons 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 Emmons County: Burleigh, Kidder, Logan, McIntosh, Morton, Sioux & Campbell (SD).

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

  • Emmons County     (The home county of Grassna)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grassna, with the one closest to Grassna listed first.
    • Westfield
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
      • Westfield is located in Emmons County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westfield
    • Strasburg
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Linton
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Hague
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Hazelton
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
  • McIntosh County
    • Zeeland
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
  • Sioux County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grassna, with the one closest to Grassna listed first.
    • Fort Yates
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Cannon Ball
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Selfridge
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Campbell County (SD)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grassna, with the one closest to Grassna listed first.
    • Pollock
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
      • Pollock is located in Campbell County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pollock
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 227 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pollock <1>
    • Herreid
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Herreid is located in Campbell County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Herreid
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 419 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Herreid <1>
    • Artas
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Artas is located in Campbell County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Artas
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 9 people
    • Mound City
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Corson County (SD)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grassna, with the one closest to Grassna listed first.
    • Kenel
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Kenel is located in Corson County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kenel
      • Estimated population in 2014: 61 people
    • Jeffrey ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Jeffrey is located in Corson County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jeffrey
      • Estimated population in 2014: 535 people
    • Mahto
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • McPherson County (SD)
    • Madra
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Madra is located in McPherson County (SD)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Madra
      • Estimated population in 2014: 7,126 people

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

Cemeteries Near Grassna ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Grassna.

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

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

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

  • Dale Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Reform Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Hull Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Bernard Catholic Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Spring Valley Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Peace Lutheran Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • Winchester Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Sacred Heart Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Anthonys Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • LaGrace Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (55 more) ...
    • Sitting Bull Burial Site
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • St. Thomas Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • St. Aloysius Catholic Church Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)

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.<4>

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

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

  • Westfield
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Westfield is located in Emmons County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westfield
  • Hull
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Hull is located in Emmons County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hull
  • Fort Yates
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Mound City
    (27 miles [43.5 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 Grassna. See our List of 1890's Communities around Grassna.

Newspapers Published in Grassna ...

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 Grassna.

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

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Grassna:

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