Cascade County, Montana Genealogy

Guide to Cascade County, Montana family history and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

United States Montana  Cascade County

Historical Facts

 * Parent County: created 12 September 1887 from Chouteau, Meagher, and Lewis and Clark Counties.
 * County seat: Great Falls
 * Neighboring Counties: Chouteau | Judith Basin | Lewis and Clark | Meagher | Teton

Cemeteries
The Cascade Counties all known cemeteries have been as completely organized and placed online and indexed.

http://www.montanagenweb.com/Cemetery/cemet.html

The website link is located through the USGenWeb Montana, Cascade County site. This is a great tool to located family members.

The names and dates are recorded according to the transcribed cemetery records, from the records or headstone. The sources were hard to read so the best guess is what had to be recorded online for the website.

Remember that headstone information was inscribed by a third person with information given a time of great stress. (Some headstones were homemade and placed at a grave site years after the death of a family member. My father Ernest Somppi made a headstone for his sister who died before he was born. These headstones are symbols of love and service, that are some times records of memory of someone life. My aunt's name and dates were a bit different than her death certificate so it took my family 100 years to obtain the death certificate.)

This website is a great service to people who have relatives placed in Cascade County graves.

There is additional information such as actual grave location, family members, birth and death dates, birth and death locations. This complete index is available thru the Great Falls Genealogy Society: www.gfgenealogy.org

Individual cemeteries:


 * Highlands Cemetery, Old and New, Great Falls BillionGraves. So named because it was likely the cemetery shown on the Google map was at first somewhat smaller and was later expanded.


 * Cascade County Montana GIS Department


 * Cascade County Internet Mapping Service

History
Many communities have published histories of the area. Example: Great Falls Memories, A Photo album - 1884 to 1939. A compilation of photo histories of the city, transportation, people, commerce, industry, education, community, disasters, recreation and celebrations, business profiles. This a typical type of project that cities and communities undertake to commemorate the subject.

Most Cascade County local histories have been indexed by the Great Falls Genealogy Society and are available to the the public on their web site: www.gfgenealogy.org

In each area photos from private and public collections have identified families members and people. Some books contain photos of people who were notable or have relatives still in the Great Falls area. Few family history might be related to the articles but historic color is very well illustrated in similar books. Archival photos do show decade styles of fashion, architecture, and social moments like baseball in 1914.

Smaller communities produce history books that seem to have more family histories of the the people who lived in the areas. These books are compiled by local groups and people usually by asking known relatives to write a family history for their family and include photos if they can. These books may also contain researched lists of teachers and ministers of churches that passed through the communities. Small histories may cover time periods from the end of the 19th Century: For example the history Valley Ventures for the Simms and Fort Shaw, Montana communities starts with the building of Fort Shaw established by the 13th US Infantry in 1868–1869 at the Sun River in the Missouri River Basin. (The Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at Fort Shaw later. Also my Grandfather Arthur Foxall was one of the men hired to dismantle the Fort in the mid 1920's.) This book has biographical family histories and copies of old letters. This book was a book produced by regular people before computers and personal printers. There are no dates when the book was printed. Dating the book is not important for this book because all histories have been authored.

Small community histories have recorded thousands family histories for people who were just a line on the US Census pages. This maybe the only record of these people.

While trying to locate some community histories do not mention the community in the title of the book so search for the books by subject or surname. Historical centers in local, county, states most likely have some reference to all communities planned or published histories. Families will only be mentioned in community histories if they were known by or had contact with a person related to the project editors.

The Salt Lake Family History Library has copies of many of the community history books. Most if not all of these types of books were on limited printings and were only published once. The undertaking to publish a community history is such a big project that a history of many communities are only published once. Many of the books might be available through inter-library loan service. Inter-library loan service can be checked out in any USA main county library.

A few communities histories do surface in used book sales online and in book stores. Most of the time these used books will cost far beyond the original price that they were sold for originally. So do not purchase the book unless you have checked the contents to see if the cost of the book warrants the possible family information that could be of use found in this type of history.

Maps



 * See an interactive map of Cascade County cemeteries and modern-day townships. (Histopolis)

Military

 * Malmstrom Air Force Base
 * Montana Air National Guard
 * Honor rolls Containing a Pictorial Record of the Gallant and Courageous Men from Cascade County, Mont., U.S.A. Who Served in the Great War, 1917-1918-1919 (digitized book)

Newspapers

 * Great Falls Tribune - Based out of Great Falls, MT

Courthouse
County Clerk has birth, death and land records from 1917. Clerk of the Court has marriage, divorce, probate and court records.

On September 12, 1887, "An Act Creating Cascade County, its Boundaries, provisions for its organization and the officers to fill the various positions until the first election," was passed by the Territorial Legislative Assembly. Cascade County had been formed from parts of Meagher, Choteau and Lewis and Clarke* Counties. Great Falls was designated as the County Seat until otherwise determined by law. Included in the Act were portions of debts incurred by the original counties that would be paid by Cascade County, money transfers from county treasurers to be paid to the Cascade County Treasurer for the support of schools in the new county, provisions for the election of county officials, and the powers and duties of the officials. *As was spelled in the 1887 Montana Code Book. If you need to contact the current Clerk and Records or Clerk of Court you may use http://www.co.cascade.mt.us/contact

Cascade County Courthouse is located at 425 Second Ave North, old stone structure. The Clerk and Recorder office is located on the main floor in the east end of building. Local US Census film readers are availble. The deeds and land records office is also on the main floor.

Naturalization records are located at the History Museum. The complete index to the records is located at the Great Falls Genealogy Society Library.


 * Cascade County Montana Courthouse link

Family History Centers

 * Belt Montana Family History Center

Family History Center is located 1401 Ninth Ave Northwest. The FHC is in the LDS Stake Center in an area on the West of the Missouri River and North of Central Ave West. The church building is blocks away from the CMR High School but may not be on any public transportation route. Call to make sure they are open, the phone number can be found on www.familysearch.org All FHC records vary from Library to Library and each Library has a different selection of books. No fee to use FHC for research.


 * Great Falls Montana East Family History Center
 * Great Falls Montana Family History Center

Libraries
The Great Falls Public Library is located at 301 Second Ave North on a one way street going west. This the main Cascade County Library. Historical books and records are located in the Montana Room. City directories, county histories, school annuals, and historic book collections are of local interest. The Montana Room is only open to the public Monday thru Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Museums
Cascade County Historical Society Museum and Archive is located at 422 Second Street South, Great Falls, Montana Relocated in the early 2000's to a larger restored warehouse. They have a large archives to research and holdings of artifacts. There is a fee. No website as of 2009. They stock community history books and local biographies to view and for purchase.

Societies
The Great Falls Genealogy Society Library is located at 301 Second Avenue North, on the third floor of the Public Library. The library is open to the public, Monday thru Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Over 10,000 resources are available covering local, national and international locations and volunteers are on hand to assist patrons with their family research. The Society holds monthly meetings featuring programs related to family research and conducts workshops and classes on a regular basis, also open to the public. Website: www.gfgenealogy.org

Marriage

 * Western States Marriage Index marriages from 1887-1890

Websites

 * Cascade County Montana Web Site
 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:

Montana, Cascade County Records (FamilySearch Historical Records) Montana Vital Records

Places
Great Fallsis the largest city in Cascade County and the County Seat. There are a number of small towns left in Cascade County: Armington, Belt, Black Eagle, Cascade, Centerville, Fort Shaw, Hardy, Monarch, Neihart, Portage, Sand Coulee, Simms, Stockett, Sun River, Tracy, Ulm, Vaughn.

Some small towns have vanished. Montana is a newer State, so land offices have a record of the populated or once populated towns. Many people homesteaded farms and did not live in towns records. Homestead records are part of the BLM or Bureau of Land Management and may not listed by county but by plot numbers. The County courthouse land records have several types of records, one type is plot.