RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of South Dakota >> Perkins County >> Usta >> Genealogy HelperIndex...










Learn About
The Commemorative
Quarter for
South Dakota

The Commemorative Quarter for South Dakota





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 Usta (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 Usta. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Usta is located in Perkins 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 Perkins County: Adams (ND), Butte, Corson, Harding, Meade & Ziebach.

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

  • Perkins County     (The home county of Usta)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Usta, with the one closest to Usta listed first.
    • Meadow
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Bison
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bison have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bison
      • Bison is located in Perkins County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 320 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Bison <1>
  • Meade County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Usta, with the one closest to Usta listed first.
    • Faith
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Faith have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Faith
      • Faith is located in Meade County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 410 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Faith <1>
    • Opal
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Cedar Canyon
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Cedar Canyon. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Canyon
      • Cedar Canyon is located in Meade County
  • Ziebach County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Usta, with the one closest to Usta listed first.
    • Iron Lightning
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Iron Lightning have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Iron Lightning
      • Iron Lightning is located in Ziebach County
      • Estimated population in 2014: 412 people
    • Red Elm ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Red Elm. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Red Elm
      • Red Elm is located in Ziebach County
    • Glad Valley
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Dupree
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Usta ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Usta.

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

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

  • St. Joseph Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Joseph Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Joseph Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Chance Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Faith Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Faith Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Faith Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Iron Lightning Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Iron Lightning Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Iron Lightning Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Meadow Gallaway Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Meadow Gallaway Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Meadow Gallaway Cemetery is located less than 2 miles<5> to the north of Meadow.
    • The Meadow Gallaway Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Gallaway Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #97234 <4>
  • Red Elm Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Red Elm Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Red Elm Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Date Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Date Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Date Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Luke Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Luke Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Luke Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Bison Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Bison Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Bison Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Backes Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Backes Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Backes Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Dupree Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Dupree Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Dupree Cemetery is located outside and to the northeast of Dupree.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2145302 <4>

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

Newspapers Published in Usta ...

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 13 newspapers that have been published in the area around Usta.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Usta, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Usta.

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 websites either 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 Usta:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Usta. 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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>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.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<4>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.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Usta) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Usta. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 45.2203, Longitude: -102.1629       In this case, the coordinates for Usta have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

Copyright 2025
All Rights Reserved

Thank you for visiting our website.

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.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025