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 Mud Butte (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 Mud Butte. 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 and 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.

Mud Butte is located in Meade County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Meade County: Butte, Haakon, Lawrence, Pennington & Ziebach.

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

• Meade County     (The home county of Mud Butte)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Mud Butte, with the one closest to Mud Butte listed first.
  • Cedar Canyon
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Cedar Canyon have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Canyon
    • Cedar Canyon is located in Meade County
  • Fairpoint
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fairpoint have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairpoint
    • Fairpoint is located in Meade County
  • Opal
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Opal
    • Opal is located in Meade County
    • Estimated population in 2014: 30 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Opal <2>
  • Red Owl
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Red Owl
    • Red Owl is located in Meade County
• Butte County
  • The following are listed by their distance from Mud Butte, with the one closest to Mud Butte listed first.
  • Hoover
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hoover
    • Hoover is located in Butte County
  • Castle Rock
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Castle Rock have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Castle Rock
    • Castle Rock is located in Butte County
• Perkins County
  • Zeona
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zeona
    • Zeona is located in Perkins County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Zeona <2>

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

Newspapers Published in Mud Butte ...

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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around Mud Butte.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Mud Butte, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Mud Butte.

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 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 Mud Butte:

• Websites specific to South Dakota
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the South Dakota State Archives

• Pages specific to Meade County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Butte County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Perkins County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for South Dakota
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of South Dakota
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of South Dakota
  • Cemeteries of Meade County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of South Dakota
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of South Dakota
  • Cemeteries of Meade County

Cemeteries Near Mud Butte ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Mud Butte.

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 Mud Butte covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

• Plum Draw Cemetery
  (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Plum Draw Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Plum Draw Cemetery
• Ruby Cemetery
  (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ruby Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ruby Cemetery
• Fairpoint Cemetery
  (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fairpoint Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fairpoint Cemetery
• Backes Cemetery
  (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Backes Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Backes Cemetery
• Date Cemetery
  (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Date Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Date Cemetery
• Pleasant Valley Cemetery
  (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery
• St. Anthony Cemetery
  (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Anthony Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Anthony Cemetery

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

The official website for Meade County: www.meadecounty.org/

The official website for State of South Dakota: sd.gov/