RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of South Dakota >> Corson County >> McLaughlin >> 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 McLaughlin (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 McLaughlin. 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 hospitals 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.

McLaughlin is located in Corson 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 Corson County: Sioux (ND), Campbell, Dewey, Perkins, Walworth & Ziebach.

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

  • Corson County     (The home county of McLaughlin)
    • The following are listed by their distance from McLaughlin, with the one closest to McLaughlin listed first.
    • Mahto
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Little Eagle
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Jeffrey ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Jeffrey is located in Corson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jeffrey
      • Estimated population in 2014: 535 people
    • Bullhead
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Walker
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Walker is located in Corson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walker
    • Kenel
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Kenel is located in Corson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kenel
      • Estimated population in 2014: 61 people
    • Wakpala
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Trail City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • McIntosh
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
  • Campbell County
    • Pollock
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
  • Dewey County
    • The following are listed by their distance from McLaughlin, with the one closest to McLaughlin listed first.
    • Glencross
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Timber Lake
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Walworth County
    • Mobridge
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Sioux County (ND)
    • The following are listed by their distance from McLaughlin, with the one closest to McLaughlin listed first.
    • Selfridge
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Fort Yates
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near McLaughlin ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of McLaughlin.

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

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

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

  • Protestant Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • St. Pauls Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Long Hill Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Sacred Heart Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Philomena Catholic Cemetery (Old)
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • St. Philomena Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • St. Lukes Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
  • St. Philomena Catholic Cemetery (New)
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • St. Bedes Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Church Of The Assumption Of The Blessed Virgin
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Gayton Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • St. Thomas Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (19 more) ...
    • Reed Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Sitting Bull Burial Site
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • LaGrace Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)

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

  • Fort Yates
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of McLaughlin ...

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 25 newspapers that have been published in the area around McLaughlin.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of McLaughlin. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of McLaughlin and those printed in the larger area surrounding McLaughlin.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<2> of McLaughlin.

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 professional and volunteer 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 McLaughlin:

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 drawn from Point A (ie- McLaughlin) 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 McLaughlin, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.