RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of South Dakota >> Dewey County >> Marksville >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Marksville (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 Marksville. 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 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.

Marksville is located in Dewey 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 Dewey County: Corson, Potter, Stanley, Sully, Walworth & Ziebach.

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

  • Dewey County     (The home county of Marksville)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Marksville, with the one closest to Marksville listed first.
    • La Plant
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • La Plant is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Plant
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 171 people
    • Virginia
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Virginia is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Virginia
      • Estimated population in 2014: 261 people
    • Moreau
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Moreau is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moreau
      • Estimated population in 2014: 21 people
    • Ridgeview
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Whitehorse
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Potter County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Marksville, with the one closest to Marksville listed first.
    • Forest City
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
      • Forest City is located in Potter County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest City
    • Gettysburg
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Lebanon
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
  • Sully County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Marksville, with the one closest to Marksville listed first.
    • Agar
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Okobojo
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
      • Okobojo is located in Sully County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Okobojo
    • Onida
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Walworth County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Marksville, with the one closest to Marksville listed first.
    • Akaska
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Lowry
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Lowry is located in Walworth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lowry
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 6 people

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

Cemeteries Near Marksville ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Marksville.

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

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

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

  • Swift Bird Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Forest City Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Le Beau Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Petro Family Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Pauls Episcopal Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Appomattox Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
  • Rushs Enemy Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Hanson Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Blair Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Schreiber Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Josephs Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
  • Sacred Heart Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Agar Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Gettysburg Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • St. Johns Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)

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

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

  • Forest City
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Forest City is located in Potter County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest City
  • Gettysburg
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Okobojo
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Okobojo is located in Sully County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Okobojo
  • Onida
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Lebanon
    (29 miles [46.7 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 Marksville. See our List of 1890's Communities around Marksville.

Newspapers Published in Marksville ...

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 9 newspapers that have been published in the area around Marksville.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Marksville, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Marksville.

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 websites either 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 Marksville:

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 Marksville, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Marksville) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.