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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 Byron (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 Byron. 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 doctors and hospitals 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.

Byron is located in Thayer County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Thayer County: Republic (KS), Washington (KS), Fillmore, Jefferson & Nuckolls.

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

  • Thayer County     (The home county of Byron)
  • Clay County
  • Fillmore County
  • Jefferson County
  • Nuckolls County
  • Webster County
    • Guide Rock
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Cloud County (KS)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Byron, with the one closest to Byron listed first.
    • Oneonta ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Oneonta is located in Cloud County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oneonta
    • Jamestown
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Jamestown is located in Cloud County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jamestown
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 258 people
    • Yuma
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Concordia
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Jewell County (KS)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Byron, with the one closest to Byron listed first.
    • Webber
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Webber is located in Jewell County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Webber
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 24 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Webber <1>
    • Formoso
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Montrose
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Mankato
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Randall
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Burr Oak
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Burr Oak is located in Jewell County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Burr Oak
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 160 people
    • Jewell
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Jewell is located in Jewell County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jewell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 396 people
  • Republic County (KS)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Byron, with the one closest to Byron listed first.
    • Republic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Sherdahl
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • White Rock
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Munden
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Scandia
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Scandia is located in Republic County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scandia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 335 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Scandia <1>
    • Belleville
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Courtland
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Narka
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Kackley
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Norway
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Norway is located in Republic County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Norway
    • Cuba
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Cuba is located in Republic County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cuba
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 141 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Cuba <1>
    • Agenda
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Agenda is located in Republic County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agenda
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 64 people
  • Washington County (KS)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Byron, with the one closest to Byron listed first.
    • Mahaska
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Mahaska is located in Washington County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mahaska
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 77 people
    • Haddam
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Haddam is located in Washington County (KS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Haddam
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 97 people
      • Haddam has also been known as:
      • Haddam City
      • West Haddam
    • Brantford
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Blocker ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Byron ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Byron.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Byron, with the one closest to Byron 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Byron had a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Byron had a population of 78 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Byron ...

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 46 newspapers that have been published in the area around Byron.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 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 Byron:

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 Byron, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Byron) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.