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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of South Dakota >> Pennington County >> Wasta >> 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 Wasta (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 Wasta. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Wasta is located in Pennington 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 Pennington County: Custer, Haakon, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Oglala Lakota & Weston (WY).

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

  • Pennington County     (The home county of Wasta)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wasta, with the one closest to Wasta listed first.
    • Owanka
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Wicksville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Wicksville is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wicksville
    • Wall
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Wall is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wall
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 885 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wall <1>
    • Quinn
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Quinn is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quinn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 62 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Quinn <1>
    • Creston ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Creston is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creston
    • Creighton
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • New Underwood
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Scenic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Farmingdale
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Farmingdale is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farmingdale
      • Estimated population in 2014: 10 people
    • Imlay
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
      • Imlay is located in Pennington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Imlay
      • Estimated population in 2014: 7 people
    • Caputa
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
  • Jackson County
    • Cottonwood
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
      • Cottonwood is located in Jackson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottonwood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 10 people
  • Meade County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wasta, with the one closest to Wasta listed first.
    • Elm Springs
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Viewfield
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Viewfield is located in Meade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Viewfield
      • Estimated population in 2014: 44 people
    • Bend
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Bend is located in Meade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bend

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

Cemeteries Near Wasta ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Wasta.

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

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

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

  • Owanka Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Creighton Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Paul Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
  • Scenic Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Emmanuel Lutheran Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Viewfield Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Larsen Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Cottonwood Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)

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.<2>

While we didn't find Wasta in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Wasta.

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

  • Creston ‑ Historic
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Creston is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creston
  • Viewfield
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Viewfield is located in Meade County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Viewfield
    • Estimated population in 2014: 44 people
  • Farmingdale
    (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Farmingdale is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farmingdale
    • Estimated population in 2014: 10 people
  • Grindstone
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Grindstone is located in Haakon County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grindstone
  • Folsom
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Folsom is located in Custer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Folsom

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Wasta ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around Wasta.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Wasta. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Wasta and those printed in the larger area surrounding Wasta.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3> of Wasta.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to 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 Wasta:

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>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 Wasta, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>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- Wasta) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.