RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of South Dakota >> Dewey County >> Thatcher >> 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 Thatcher (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 Thatcher. 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.

Thatcher 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 Thatcher. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Thatcher:

  • Dewey County     (The home county of Thatcher)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Thatcher, with the one closest to Thatcher listed first.
    • Ridgeview
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Parade
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Eagle Butte
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • La Plant
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
      • La Plant is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Plant
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 171 people
    • North Eagle Butte
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • North Eagle Butte is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Eagle Butte
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 1,954 people
    • Whitehorse
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Green Grass
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
      • Green Grass is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Green Grass
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 35 people
    • Virginia
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Virginia is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Virginia
      • Estimated population in 2014: 261 people
    • Lantry
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Marksville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
      • Marksville is located in Dewey County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marksville
      • Estimated population in 2014: 771 people
    • Glencross
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Timber Lake
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
  • Potter County
    • Forest City
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Forest City is located in Potter County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest City
  • Stanley County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Thatcher, with the one closest to Thatcher listed first.
    • Orton
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Orton is located in Stanley County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orton
      • Estimated population in 2014: 66 people
    • Mission Ridge
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near Thatcher ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Thatcher.

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

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

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

  • St. Josephs Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • On-a-Tree Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Rushs Enemy Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Pauls Episcopal Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Eagle Butte Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Emmanuel Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • St. Marks Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Green Grass Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • Rousseau Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Walking Horse Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Lindsay Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
  • Mission Ridge Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (7 more) ...
    • Lantry Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • St. James Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Holy Cross Cemetery
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in Thatcher ...

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 6 newspapers that have been published in the area around Thatcher.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Thatcher, 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 Thatcher.

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 Thatcher:

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 drawn from Point A (ie- Thatcher) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.