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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Yankton (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 Yankton. 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 hospitals 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.

Yankton is located in Yankton County and is the County Seat.

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 Yankton County: Cedar (NE), Knox (NE), Bon Homme, Clay, Hutchinson & Turner.

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

  • Yankton County     (The home county of Yankton)
  • Bon Homme County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Tabor
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Scotland
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Tyndall
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Springfield
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Kingsburg
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Kingsburg is located in Bon Homme County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kingsburg
      • Estimated population in 2014: 697 people
  • Clay County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Meckling
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Wakonda
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Westreville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Westreville is located in Clay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westreville
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 208 people
    • Bloomingdale
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Lodi
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Lodi is located in Clay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lodi
      • Estimated population in 2014: 82 people
    • Vermillion
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Riverside ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Hub City
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Hub City is located in Clay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hub City
    • Greenfield
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Komstad ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Alsen
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
    • Burbank
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Hutchinson County
  • Turner County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Irene
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Spring Valley
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Spring Valley is located in Turner County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spring Valley
    • Viborg
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Centerville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Hooker
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Cedar County (NE)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Aten
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Saint Helena
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Constance
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Fordyce
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Bow Valley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Wynot
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Hartington
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Obert
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Coleridge
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Magnet
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Dixon County (NE)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Maskell
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Maskell is located in Dixon County (NE)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maskell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 68 people
    • Newcastle
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Knox County (NE)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Yankton, with the one closest to Yankton listed first.
    • Crofton
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Lindy
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Tewsville ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Bloomfield
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Santee
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Santee is located in Knox County (NE)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santee
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 338 people
    • Wausa
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Wausa is located in Knox County (NE)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wausa
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 557 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wausa <1>
    • Center
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Yankton ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Yankton.

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

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

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

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Yankton had a population of 3,670 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Yankton had a population of 14,651 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Yankton ...

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 116 newspapers that have been published in the area around Yankton.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Yankton. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Yankton and those printed in the larger area surrounding Yankton.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Yankton.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Yankton:

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 '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- Yankton) 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 Yankton, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.