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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 Reliance (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 Reliance. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Reliance is located in Lyman 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 Lyman County: Brule, Buffalo, Gregory, Hughes, Hyde, Jones, Mellette, Stanley & Tripp.

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

  • Lyman County     (The home county of Reliance)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Reliance, with the one closest to Reliance listed first.
    • East Lyman
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
      • East Lyman is located in Lyman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Lyman
      • Estimated population in 2019: 145 people
    • Lyman
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
      • Lyman is located in Lyman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lyman
      • Estimated population in 2014: 43 people
    • Oacoma
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Lower Brule
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Kennebec
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Presho
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
    • Iona
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Brule County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Reliance, with the one closest to Reliance listed first.
    • Chamberlain
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Pukwana
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Ola
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Ola is located in Brule County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ola
      • Estimated population in 2014: 108 people
  • Buffalo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Reliance, with the one closest to Reliance listed first.
    • Fort Thompson
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Crow Creek
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Crow Creek is located in Buffalo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow Creek
    • Shelby
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Shelby is located in Buffalo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shelby
      • Estimated population in 2014: 96 people
  • Hyde County
    • Stephan
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Tripp County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Reliance, with the one closest to Reliance listed first.
    • Hamill
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Ideal
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Reliance ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Reliance.

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

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

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

  • Reliance Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Trinity Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Oacoma Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Hillsdale Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Kennebec Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • St. Michaels Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Holy Comforter Episcopal Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Red Hill Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Riverview Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Catholic Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Catholic Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Catholic Cemetery is located less than 2 miles<3> to the west of Fort Thompson.
    • The Catholic Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Lake View Cemetery
    • St. Joseph's Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #97570 <2>
  • St. Joseph Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (23 more) ...
    • Earling Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Earling Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Earling Cemetery is located 2 miles [3.2 km]<3> to the west of Kennebec.
    • Prairie View Cemetery
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Prairie View Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Prairie View Cemetery is located 8 miles [12.9 km]<3> to the south of Kennebec.
    • St. John the Baptist Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. John the Baptist Cemetery
      • The St. John the Baptist Cemetery has also been known as:
      • St. John the Baptist Episcopal Cemetery
      • St. John's Cemetery
      • St. John's Episcopal Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2168051 <2>

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

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

  • Lyman
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Lyman is located in Lyman County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lyman
    • Estimated population in 2014: 43 people
  • Oacoma
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Lower Brule
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Chamberlain
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Crow Creek
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Crow Creek is located in Buffalo County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow Creek
  • Pukwana
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
  • Presho
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Stephan
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Ola
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Ola is located in Brule County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ola
    • Estimated population in 2014: 108 people

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Reliance ...

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 Reliance.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Reliance. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Reliance and those printed in the larger area surrounding Reliance.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<3> of Reliance.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Reliance:

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>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 from Point A (ie- Reliance) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Reliance, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.