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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 Sawyer (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 Sawyer. 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 southwest 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 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 west 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.

Sawyer 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 Sawyer. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Sawyer:

  • Ward County     (The home county of Sawyer)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sawyer, with the one closest to Sawyer listed first.
    • Surrey
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Minot
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Burlington
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Ruthville
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Ruthville is located in Ward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ruthville
    • Des Lacs
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Douglas
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Foxholm
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Foxholm is located in Ward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foxholm
    • Lonetree
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Ryder
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • McHenry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sawyer, with the one closest to Sawyer listed first.
    • Velva
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Velva is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Velva
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,185 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Velva <1>
    • Genoa
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
      • Genoa is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Genoa
    • Voltaire
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Granville
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Bergen
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Bergen is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bergen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 7 people
    • Rising ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Rising is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rising
    • Karlsruhe
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Kongsberg
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Kongsberg is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kongsberg
    • Deering
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Balfour
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Kief
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • McLean County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sawyer, with the one closest to Sawyer listed first.
    • Benedict
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Ruso
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Max
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Max is located in McLean County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Max
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 348 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Max <1>
    • Butte
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Butte is located in McLean County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Butte
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 76 people
  • Renville County
    • Glenburn
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Sawyer ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sawyer.

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

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

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

  • Sawyer Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Center Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Walley Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Stnenkjer Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Hope Lutheran Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • Westgaard Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Norwich Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Saron Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Township Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • South Prairie Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • St. John Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (29 more) ...
    • Verendrye Cemetery
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Rosehill Memorial Cemetery
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosehill Memorial Cemetery
      • The Rosehill Memorial Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Rosehill Cemetery
    • Trinity Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)

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

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

  • Logan
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Logan is located in Ward County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Logan
  • Minot
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Granville
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Burlington
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Denbigh
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Denbigh is located in McHenry County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Denbigh
  • Des Lacs
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Sawyer ...

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 62 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sawyer.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Sawyer. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Sawyer and those printed in the larger area surrounding Sawyer.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Sawyer.

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 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 Sawyer:

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 Sawyer, 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' (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- Sawyer) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.