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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 Broken Bow (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 Broken Bow. 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.

Name Variations for Broken Bow ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

Broken Bow has also been known as: Brokenbow.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 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.

Broken Bow is located in Custer County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Custer County: Blaine, Buffalo, Dawson, Garfield, Lincoln, Logan, Loup, Sherman & Valley.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Broken Bow ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Broken Bow.

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

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

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.<5>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Broken Bow had a population of 1,647 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Broken Bow had a population of 3,437 people.

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

  • Berwyn
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Berwyn have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berwyn
    • Berwyn is located in Custer County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 79 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Berwyn <2>
  • Merna
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Merna have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Merna
    • Merna is located in Custer County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 360 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Merna <2>
  • Elton ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Elton have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elton
    • Elton is located in Custer County
  • Lillian
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lillian have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lillian
    • Lillian is located in Custer County
  • Round Valley
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Round Valley have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Round Valley
    • Round Valley is located in Custer County
  • Dale ‑ Historic
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dale have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dale
    • Dale is located in Custer County
  • Westerville
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • New Helena
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Ansley
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Callaway
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Gates
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Lodi
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lodi have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lodi
    • Lodi is located in Custer County
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Broken Bow ...

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 82 newspapers that have been published in the area around Broken Bow.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 Broken Bow:

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

The official website for Custer County: www.co.custer.ne.us/

The official website for State of Nebraska: https://www.nebraska.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>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>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 from Point A (ie- Broken Bow) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Broken Bow. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 41.4055, Longitude: -99.6402    
<5>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 Broken Bow, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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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.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025