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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 Rawson (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 Rawson. 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 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 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.

Rawson is located in McKenzie 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 McKenzie County: Richland (MT), Wibaux (MT), Billings, Dunn, Golden Valley, Mountrail & Williams.

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

  • McKenzie County     (The home county of Rawson)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rawson, with the one closest to Rawson listed first.
    • Arnegard
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Alexander
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Charbonneau
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Charbonneau is located in McKenzie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Charbonneau
    • Watford City
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Schafer
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Schafer is located in McKenzie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Schafer
    • Cartwright
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Banks ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Banks is located in McKenzie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Banks
    • Harding
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Harding is located in McKenzie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harding
    • Dore
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Dore is located in McKenzie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dore
    • Keene
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
  • Williams County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rawson, with the one closest to Rawson listed first.
    • Lake Jessie
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
      • Lake Jessie is located in Williams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Jessie
    • Trenton
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Williston
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Springbrook
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Springbrook is located in Williams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Springbrook
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 41 people
  • Richland County (MT)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rawson, with the one closest to Rawson listed first.
    • Fairview
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Sidney
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Sidney is located in Richland County (MT)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sidney
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 6,297 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Sidney <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Rawson ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Rawson.

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

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

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

  • Rawson Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Alexander Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Wilmington Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Zoar Lutheran Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Camp Creek Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Spring Grove Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Charbonneau Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Tepee Buttes Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Red Wing Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • Highland Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Salem Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Nameless Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (24 more) ...
    • Schafer Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Yellowstone Point Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Hauges Norwegian Lutheran Church Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hauges Norwegian Lutheran Church Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Hauges Norwegian Lutheran Church Cemetery is located 9 miles [14.5 km]<3> to the southeast of Williston.
      • The Hauges Norwegian Lutheran Church Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Hauge Cemetery
      • Ploom Creek Hauges Norwegian Lutheran Chuch Cemetery
      • Ploom Creek Norwegian Lutheran Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2251842 <2>

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

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

  • Trenton
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Williston
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
  • Buford
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Buford is located in Williams County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buford
  • Avoca
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Avoca is located in Williams County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Avoca

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Rawson ...

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 40 newspapers that have been published in the area around Rawson.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Rawson. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Rawson and those printed in the larger area surrounding Rawson.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Rawson.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we 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 Rawson:

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' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Rawson) 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 Rawson, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.