Ohio Born and Bred

The Ohio Historical Society and the State Library of Ohio have joined forces to place online a massive collection of documents, records and photos, known as Ohio Memories, relating to Ohio. If you ever had an ancestor who was born, lived, or worked in Ohio you will want to review this site.

The selection of categories include manuscripts, documents, photographs, archaeological resources, letters, diaries, newspapers, videos, historical artifacts and wildlife of Ohio. To begin a search look over the various categories. There is a drop down box and you can check which ones to review. There is a search box to place a surname or keywords.

Under Photographs the surname ‘Johnson’ was searched and revealed 147 images. Many of those are related to the famous Johnson Island Confederate prison. There is also an interesting collection in the photos of the Republic Steel Corporation employees identification photos. If you had a relative working for that company that could be quite a find.

Put in names of towns or counties in Ohio and a long list of places and business will appear. There are photographs of historical artifacts and descriptions with each. You can click on any of the thumbnail images to have it fully enlarged along with additional details.

With the manuscript category the paper items have been scanned as images so those too can be viewed enlarged. Included are diaries, tickets, programs to shows, letters, autograph books, dance cards, etc. Quite a variety is available.

The newspaper category has many newspapers from across the state. Here you could put in a surname and see where and how often that name appears in newspapers over the years. When a newspaper image is enlarged the name searched will be highlighted, making it easier to locate. Most of the newspapers available cover the 20th

You can also search using the topics to the left: Subject, Place and Contributor. For example under subject you could locate some the many Civil War Regiments which served from Ohio.

This a vast collection and one not to be overlooked if you any ancestors from Ohio.

Photo:  A Xenia High School – Class of 1901 photo taken from a time capsule. Even all the names were listed.