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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 Silva (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 Silva. 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.

Silva is located in Pierce 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 Pierce County: Benson, Bottineau, McHenry, Rolette, Sheridan, Towner & Wells.

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

  • Pierce County     (The home county of Silva)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Silva, with the one closest to Silva listed first.
    • Balta
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Orrin
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Rugby
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Selz
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Selz is located in Pierce County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Selz
    • Wolford
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Barton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Barton is located in Pierce County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barton
  • Benson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Silva, with the one closest to Silva listed first.
    • Esmond
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Pleasant Lake
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • Pleasant Lake is located in Benson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant Lake
    • Isabel
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Knox
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • York
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Maddock
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Leeds
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Brinsmade
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Niles
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
      • Niles is located in Benson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Niles
  • McHenry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Silva, with the one closest to Silva listed first.
    • Funston
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Funston is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Funston
    • Berwick
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Berwick is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berwick
    • Anamoose
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Guthrie
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Guthrie is located in McHenry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Guthrie
    • Towner
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Drake
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Sheridan County
    • Martin
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
  • Wells County
    • Harvey
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near Silva ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Silva.

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

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

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

  • Trinity Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • St. Anns Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Mt. Carmel Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Esmond Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Mathis Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Little Flower Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Strasburg Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Knox Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Anselm Catholic Church of Fulda Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Anselm Catholic Church of Fulda Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the St. Anselm Catholic Church of Fulda Cemetery is located 12 miles [19.3 km]<2> to the southwest of Rugby.
    • The St. Anselm Catholic Church of Fulda Cemetery has also been known as:
    • St. Anselms Friedhoff
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2254966 <3>
  • Hesper Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Knox Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (37 more) ...
    • Our Saviors Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Berwick Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • St. Boniface Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)

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

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

  • Rugby
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Pleasant Lake
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Pleasant Lake is located in Benson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant Lake
  • Knox
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • York
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
  • Berwick
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Berwick is located in McHenry County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berwick
  • Leeds
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
  • Barton
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Barton is located in Pierce County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barton
  • Brinsmade
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Silva ...

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 47 newspapers that have been published in the area around Silva.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Silva. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Silva and those printed in the larger area surrounding Silva.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<2> of Silva.

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 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 Silva:

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Silva) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<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 Silva, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.