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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 Keystone (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 Keystone. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Keystone is located in Pennington County.

To see how the shape of South 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 Pennington County: Custer, Haakon, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Oglala Lakota & Weston (WY).

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

  • Pennington County     (The home county of Keystone)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Keystone, with the one closest to Keystone listed first.
    • Frenchtown ‑ Historic
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
      • Frenchtown is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frenchtown
      • Estimated population in 2014: 276 people
    • Harney
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
      • Harney is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harney
      • Estimated population in 2014: 64 people
    • Hayward ‑ Historic
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Hayward is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hayward
    • Rockerville
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Stratosphere Bowl
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Stratosphere Bowl is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stratosphere Bowl
      • Estimated population in 2014: 72 people
    • Sheridan ‑ Historic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Sheridan is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sheridan
      • Estimated population in 2014: 447 people
    • Hill City
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Colonial Pine Hills
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Colonial Pine Hills is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Colonial Pine Hills
    • Pactola ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Wildwood Addition
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Wildwood Addition is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wildwood Addition
      • Estimated population in 2014: 55 people
    • Johnson Siding
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Redfern
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Redfern is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Redfern
  • Custer County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Keystone, with the one closest to Keystone listed first.
    • Spokane ‑ Historic
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • State Game Lodge
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • State Game Lodge is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for State Game Lodge
      • Estimated population in 2014: 29 people
    • Hermosa
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Berne
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Berne is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berne
    • Custer
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Sanator
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Sanator is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sanator
      • Estimated population in 2014: 1,350 people
    • Fairburn
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Fourmile
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Fourmile is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fourmile
      • Estimated population in 2014: 70 people
    • Pringle
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Buffalo Gap
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Lawrence County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Keystone, with the one closest to Keystone listed first.
    • Merritt
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
      • Merritt is located in Lawrence County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Merritt
      • Estimated population in 2014: 175 people
    • Nemo
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Tomahawk
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Tomahawk is located in Lawrence County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tomahawk
      • Estimated population in 2014: 36 people
    • Diamond City ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Diamond City is located in Lawrence County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Diamond City
    • Greenwood
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Gregory ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Gregory is located in Lawrence County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gregory
      • Estimated population in 2014: 1,264 people
    • Nahant
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Roubaix
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Dumont
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Meade County

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

Cemeteries Near Keystone ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Keystone.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Keystone, with the one closest to Keystone 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>

While we didn't find Keystone in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Keystone.

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

  • Spokane ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Hayward ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Hayward is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hayward
  • Rockerville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Sheridan ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Sheridan is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sheridan
    • Estimated population in 2014: 447 people
  • Hill City
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Oreville
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Oreville is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oreville
  • Hermosa
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Berne
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Berne is located in Custer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berne
  • Custer
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Pactola ‑ Historic
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Redfern
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Redfern is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Redfern
  • Silver City
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Silver City is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver City
    • Estimated population in 2014: 60 people
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Keystone ...

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 50 newspapers that have been published in the area around Keystone.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Keystone. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Keystone and those printed in the larger area surrounding Keystone.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<4> of Keystone.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Keystone:

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