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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 Burke (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 Burke. 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 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.

Burke is located in Dane County.

To see how the shape of Wisconsin's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Dane County: Columbia, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Rock & Sauk.

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

  • Dane County     (The home county of Burke)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Burke, with the one closest to Burke listed first.
    • Sun Prairie
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Sun Prairie is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun Prairie
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 35,119 people
    • Darwin ‑ Historic
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Cottage Grove
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Maple Bluff
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
      • Maple Bluff is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Bluff
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,307 people
    • Mendota
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Pierceville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Windsor
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Hope
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Hope is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hope
    • Monona
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Monona is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Monona
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 8,164 people
    • Madison
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • DeForest
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • McFarland
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • McFarland is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McFarland
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 9,291 people
    • Door Creek
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Columbia County
  • Dodge County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Burke, with the one closest to Burke listed first.
    • Astico
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Reeseville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Lowell
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Lowell is located in Dodge County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lowell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 322 people
    • Clyman
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Clyman is located in Dodge County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clyman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 396 people
    • Randolph
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Randolph is located in Dodge County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Randolph
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,738 people
  • Green County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Burke, with the one closest to Burke listed first.
    • Dayton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Attica
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • New Glarus
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Albany
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Albany is located in Green County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Albany
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 977 people
    • Mineral Point
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Mineral Point is located in Green County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mineral Point
  • Iowa County
  • Jefferson County
  • Rock County
  • Sauk County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Burke, with the one closest to Burke listed first.
    • Merrimac
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Merrimac is located in Sauk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Merrimac
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 441 people
    • Sauk City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Sauk City is located in Sauk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sauk City
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,498 people
    • Moon Valley
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Prairie du Sac village
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Burke ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Burke.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Burke, with the one closest to Burke 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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Burke had a population of 18 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Vilas
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Vilas is located in Dane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vilas
  • Sun Prairie
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Sun Prairie is located in Dane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun Prairie
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 35,119 people
  • Darwin ‑ Historic
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Cottage Grove
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Mendota
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Hope
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Hope is located in Dane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hope
  • Pierceville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Windsor
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Madison
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Door Creek
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • DeForest
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Nora
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Nora is located in Dane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nora
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Deansville
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Deansville is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deansville
    • North Bristol
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Waunakee
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
      • Waunakee is located in Dane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waunakee
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 14,188 people

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

Newspapers Published in Burke ...

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 209 newspapers that have been published in the area around Burke.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Burke, there are papers which were published within 21 miles [33.8 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Burke.

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 Burke:

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<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 Burke, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Burke) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.