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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 Ralph (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 Ralph. 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.

Ralph is located in Harding 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 Harding County: Carter (MT), Fallon (MT), Adams (ND), Bowman (ND), Butte & Perkins.

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

  • Harding County     (The home county of Ralph)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ralph, with the one closest to Ralph listed first.
    • Reva
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Reva have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reva
      • Reva is located in Harding County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Reva <2>
    • Ludlow
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ludlow have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ludlow
      • Ludlow is located in Harding County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ludlow <2>
    • Buffalo
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Buffalo have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buffalo
      • Buffalo is located in Harding County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 373 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Buffalo <2>
  • Perkins County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ralph, with the one closest to Ralph listed first.
    • Lodgepole
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lodgepole have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lodgepole
      • Lodgepole is located in Perkins County
      • Estimated population in 2014: 35 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Lodgepole <2>
    • Prairie City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Prairie City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Prairie City
      • Prairie City is located in Perkins County
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 23 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Prairie City <2>
    • Strool
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Strool have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Strool
      • Strool is located in Perkins County
      • Estimated population in 2014: 52 people
  • Adams County (ND)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ralph, with the one closest to Ralph listed first.
    • Reeder
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Bucyrus
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bucyrus have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bucyrus
      • Bucyrus is located in Adams County (ND)
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 24 people
    • Hettinger
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Bowman County (ND)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ralph, with the one closest to Ralph listed first.
    • Haley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Gascoyne
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Gascoyne have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gascoyne
      • Gascoyne is located in Bowman County (ND)
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 14 people
    • Scranton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Ralph ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ralph.

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Ralph ...

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 22 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ralph.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ralph, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Ralph.

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 Ralph:

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

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

Footnotes ...

<1>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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>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 from Point A (ie- Ralph) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Ralph. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 45.7765, Longitude: -103.0665    









 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025