Welcome to the Genealogy Trails website
for
Mellette County South Dakota

Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all researchers.

Many thanks to our former host Rita Bergendahl for all of her hard work on this website!


This Genealogy Trails legacy site has been retired and is not available for adoption.  

We do have many other county sites available for adoption, so......
If you have a love for history and/or genealogy, consider joining us!
Get the details on our Volunteer Page.
[A desire to transcribe data and knowledge of how to make a basic webpage is required.]

We regret that we are unable to do personal research for anyone..
All data we come across will be added to this site.
We thank you for visiting and hope you'll come back again to view the updates we make to this site
Happy Trails to you on your quest for your ancestors.


County Information
Created in 1909 and organized in 1911.
It was named after Arthur C. Mellette, the last Governor of the Dakota Territory and the first Governor of the state of South Dakota.

Its county seat is White River. 

Historically territory of the Sioux/Lakota peoples, 33% of Mellette county is trust land associated with the Rosebud Indian Reservation (mainly located in Todd county). According to the U.S. Census in 2000, 52.2% of the population of Mellette County is Native American, consisting mostly of the federally recognized Sicangu Oyate (Upper Brulé Sioux) and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, a branch of the Lakota people.

City:  White River (county seat)
Town: Wood
Census-designated places: Corn Creek ~ Norris

Townships
 Bad Nation ~ Blackpipe ~ Butte ~ Cody ~ Fairview ~ Mosher ~ New Surprise Valley ~ Norris ~ Prospect ~
Red Fish ~ Ring Thunder ~ Riverside ~ Rocky Ford ~ Rosebud ~ Running Bird ~ Surprise Valley

Unorganized Territories:  Cedarbutte and Central Mellette.

NOTE:  The city of Mellette is located in Spink County, SD