Thursday, December 11, 2014

Shipping Ohio's Black Soldiers in Time for Christmas!

Perceval has just finished packaging orders for the new OGS publication, Ohio's Black Soldiers who Served in the Civil War - $24.95 plus $3.50 shipping plus Ohio resident sales tax (often 7%) - OGS members can take a $5 discount. He needs help because we think that the stack is about to topple over on him! Now off to find the Holy Grail in time for Cristesmaesse!


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Endowment Fund Cornerstone Plaques Installed

We are looking at a high of sunny 14 today as the snow begins to drift over the OGS Library!



But the real reason for this blog post is to announce that our largest Endowment Fund Donors have been recognized with central plaques in our memorial wall at the front of the building. This fundraising drive predates our building project with lead donor, the late James Jay Strong, who contributed $100,000 way back in 1995. Other "cornerstone" donors who gave over $5000 were Dale D. Grismore, Nancy White Harner, Ralph A. Overton, S. Bradleigh and Patricia Vinson, and June Herman Ely. Yes, we were thinking about a new building back then! We also had 9 "capstone" donors (between $2000 and $4999) and 17 "pillar" donors (between $1000 and $1999) who are recognized on plaques.



We used all our financial resources toward the new OGS Library construction so had to hold off a bit on our plaque responsibilities. Now we have bit the bullet and these folks will be remembered (in bronze) for all time - at least as long as our wall lasts. We really do appreciate all those who have contributed in any way to our Endowment Fund, Building Fund, and our general Operating Fund. Thank you!

Friday, October 24, 2014

DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS AT OGS

Lyman Copeland Draper 1815-1891 served as Secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society where his original manuscripts are housed. Beginning in the 1830s, he began collecting material on the Trans-Allegheny region including Ohio, Kentucky, southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and more. Many of his correspondents sent him the original 18th century documents - especially things from the Revolutionary War time period and items dealing with Native Americans. This was Draper's life work but he never got much of it published. More information may be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Draper. The microfilm set has been available for years and it is now digitally on FamilySearch - no complete index. The Ohio Genealogical Society has just acquired a printout of the entire microfilm set, excepting Series SS David Shepherd Papers and Series TT & UU South Carolina Papers. Our recommendation is that you visit OGS, explore this vast collection of bound Draper Manuscripts, and then once you locate the pages needed with citations, visit the FamilySearch web site to get an image that you can touch up with your photo software. It takes forever to find something online with no real index. Allen County Public Library is the only other facility in the country that holds this bound set.


Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Newsletter Need a Fix!

Susan Zacharias will be giving a program at the Ohio Genealogical Society this Saturday, Oct. 11th at 10 AM, on Newsletter Rescue: Display, Design, and Content. If you know of anyone who works on a newsletter for any organization, this lecture will be helpful as Sue is a national award winner as a newsletter editor. Call the library 419-886-1903 or email Tom Neel - tneel@ogs.org - to leave your name for the class.

While in the OGS Library, check out the Ohio Civil War 150 Display courtesy the Ohio History Connection. This will be open to the public for viewing through November the 15th. It is in the meeting room, so you will have Civil War scenes around you as you hear about newsletter preparation!

Keep in mind that OGS is open free of charge to all during October, Family History Month - no admittance fee. Send people in our direction. New members can sign up for $25 as well during October, a $10 savings.

My last blog message told about FamilySearch posting the Ohio county death images. Unfortunately, they have redesigned their web site database listing and this one has not made it to the new listing.There are actually two database listings now to get them all. One comes up when you click on Ohio and then you have to click on the link to See All Databases to get the others to show. The old Probate death index is there but not the image database recently posted. I'm sure they will find it again in time! We are back to 27 Ohio-specific databases on FamilySearch.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Ohio County Deaths 1840 to 2001

I noticed that FamilySearch now has 28 Ohio databases rather than 27. I think the new one is Ohio County Deaths 1840 to 2001. Most will be from the 1867 to 1908 period when Probate Court handled death records. There are 82 counties online so far. Ashland and Richland near the OGS Library are not among them. Also some counties are incomplete as yet. Henry County, for example, begins in 1882, yet the OGS chapter has abstracted earlier death records, so they must exist. However, FamilySearch now has 899,395 fantastic images online that were not there previously! Of course, the death indexes have been posted for a couple years. Enjoy!

Friday, September 12, 2014

Fall Classes at OGS Library

The OGS Fall Conference (Oct. 4) and the OGS Genealogy Librarians' Seminar (Oct 17) are well-advertised on the OGS web site (www.ogs.org) but we have a number of free hour long instructional seminars at the Ohio Genealogical Society Library, 611 State Route 97 W (Exit 165 on I-71), on the calendar yet for this fall:

Saturday, Sept. 13th, at 10 AM - Deborah Abbott, Ph.D., on "The Gift of Legacy: Who's Telling Your Story?

Friday, Sept. 19th, at 10 AM - Tom Neel, MLIS, on "Taking a Look at Common Pleas Case Files"

Saturday, Sept. 20th, at 10 AM - Jennifer Alford, on "Documenting Your Family Heirlooms"

Friday, Oct. 3rd, at 10 AM - Deborah Abbott, Ph.D., on "African American Genealogy from Slavery to Freedom"

Saturday, Oct. 11th, at 10 AM - Susan Zacharias, former Ohio Genealogy News editor, on "Newsletter Rescue: Layout, Design, Content"

Please join us for these educational classes. Call 419-886-1903 and leave a message to reserve a spot or email me at tneel@ogs.org 

Bring non-members too! Class attendees can stay the rest of the day to research in the library with no normal admittance fee - save $5.00!

Monday, September 8, 2014

Last Batch of Ohio Newspapers Added to Chronicling America!

We just received notification from Jenni Salamon at the Ohio History Center that the last batch of Ohio newspapers has been added to the free web site ChroniclingAmerica from the third grant cycle. There are a couple fillers yet but this will be it for Ohio until another grant application is approved down the road. I think our state has done the best job of providing a wide representation of newspapers from all geographic regions and time periods. Here is Jenni's post:



I am pleased to announce that the following papers have been added to Chronicling America!

·         From Cadiz (Harrison County):
·         From Delaware (Delaware County):
·         From Somerset (Perry County):
·         From Upper Sandusky (Wyandot County):

With this latest update, everything we’ve digitized so far is now available on Chronicling America, for a total of just over 304,000 pages.  This number does not include the extra papers we’ll be digitizing, so there is still more to come!

Monday, August 11, 2014

Chapter Management Seminar a Success!

About 50 people attended the OGS Chapter Management Seminar in Lebanon, Ohio this weekend. We all learned about legal ownership of your chapter's possessions, social media, attracting new members, improving your web site, providing access to your chapter's holdings, bylaws and standing rules, publishing, planning seminars, and much more! We certainly should double the number of attendees next year. What a fantastic resource for your chapter officers and it is FREE!

Monday, June 30, 2014

More Ohio Newspapers Online

Jenni Salamon from the Ohio Historical Society has posted another announcement about more Ohio newspapers being added to the free Library of Congress newspaper database - http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

I am pleased to announce that three more papers have been added to Chronicling America!








· From Carrollton (Carroll County)



o Carroll Free Press, 1836, 1841-1858



· From Jackson (Jackson County)



o Jackson Standard, 1853-1888



o Jackson Daily Standard, 1873-1874, 1880-1881







Have a Happy Fourth of July!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Pennsylvania Books Donated

Do you have ancestors in south central Pennsylvania? Bob Longbottom of Mogadore OH has donated a large collection of Pennsylvania works to the Ohio Genealogical Society. Many of these are newspaper abstracts and court records concentrated in the Bedford-Morrison Cove area. Many titles were compiled by historians James Boor, Frank Bayer, and others. There are many family histories. If you do a catalog search for "Longbottom Bedford County", 74 titles come up; and if you do a search for "Longbottom Blair County", there are 123 titles. Just doing a search for the donor "Longbottom" yields 213 new titles and we don't have them all catalogued yet. This is probably the best method if you wish to scan through all the new books from this donation.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

OGS Summer Sessions Schedule Released



Two posts in one day! The Ohio Genealogical Society has released its summer sessions program. All events listed here are at the OGS Library. Check the website www.ogs.org for off-site events.

21 Jun - Sat – 1 PM – Doug Osborne on the History of Clocks (FREE)
11 Jul – Fri – 10 AM – Tom Neel on Creating a Family Archive at Home (FREE)
18 Jul - Fri – 6 PM – Richland Co Chapter Library Lock-in until midnight ($10 chapter members; $15 non-members)
19 Jul – Sat – 10 AM – Deb Abbott on Vital Records: the Cornerstone of Genealogy (FREE)
25 Jul – Fri - 10 AM – Derek Davey on Navigating Family Research (FREE)
2 Aug – Sat - 10 AM – Chris Staats on Order in the Court! – a History of Ohio’s Courts and the Records they Created (FREE)
8 Aug – Fri - 10 AM – Derek Davey on Civil War Research (FREE)
16 Aug – Sat - 10 AM – Jen Alford on Blogging for Genealogists (FREE)
30 Aug – Sat - 10 AM – Deb Abbott on A Gift of Legacy, Who is Writing Your Story? (FREE)
19 Sep – Fri - 10 AM – Tom Neel on Taking a Look at Common Pleas Case Files (FREE)
20 Sep – Sat - 10 AM – Jen Alford on Documenting Your Family Heirlooms (FREE)
3 Oct – Fri - 1 PM – Deb Abbott on African American Genealogy, from Slavery to Freedom (FREE)
4 Oct – Sat - All Day – Fall Seminar with D. Joshua Taylor – at the Quality Inn next door – 9:30 AM Beyond Belief, the Wealth of Genealogical and Historical Societies; 10:45 AM Online Resources for New England; 1:30 PM Mapping Your Success, Employing Maps for Genealogical Research; 2:45 PM New Tools and Ideas in Research (FEE, $40 OGS members; $45 non-members)
11 Oct – Sat - 10 AM – Susan Zacharias on Newsletter Rescue, Layout, Design, Content (FREE)

In order to set up seating and provide enough handouts, we do ask that visitors register in advance even for the free classes. Call 419-886-1903 to register or send an email to Tom Neel – tneel@ogs.org – with  your summer class plans at the Ohio Genealogical Society library. Visitors may stay and research at the library after the classes without the usual library admittance fee. We do expect you to make a lot of photocopies and even drop a donation in the basket if you have good research luck! We are a non-profit after all, but we find that these FREE summer classes bring many new faces to our organization. Please enjoy a Summer of Learning!

More Free Ohio Newspapers Online!

This is actually week-old news because I am bad and don't always read my email at home. It's another newspaper message from Jenni at the Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society). The Fremont and Plymouth newspapers were from my own District 2 [Tom]!



Good Afternoon!

I am pleased to announce that several more Ohio newspapers were added to Chronicling America today:

·         From Lower Sandusky/Fremont (Sandusky County):
·         From Napoleon (Henry County):
·         From Plymouth (Richland/Huron Counties):

Happy searching!

Cheers,

Jenni Salamon | Project Coordinator, National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio
Ohio History Connection | 800 E. 17th Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43211

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Three More Ohio Newspaper Titles on ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov

Jenni Salamon from the Ohio Newspaper Digitization Project reports that three more Ohio newspapers have just been added to Chronicling America. Enjoy!

I am pleased to announce that three more papers have been added to Chronicling America!
 
·         Medina Sentinel, 1914-1921
·         Star (Cincinnati), 1875-1875

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Giving Tree Installed at OGS Library



The Giving Tree was installed at the Ohio Genealogical Society library entrance today which honors those individuals who have given $1000 or more to the OGS Building Fund since our campaign started in 2003. We still have a little more of the USDA loan to pay but we wanted to honor those who have built this library with more than just a plaque. We really appreciate all the donations that have come in through the years, large or small. They all add up, just like each individual leaf here makes a tree! Thanks go to all of you!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Lots More Online Newspaper Content for Ohio

Jenni Salamon of OHS, Project Coordinator, for the National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio, reports that several more Ohio newspaper titles have been posted on the www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov web site. Tom Neel from OGS represents District 2 on that committee.



·         Greenville Journal (1907-1918)
·         Kalida Venture (1845-1854)
·         Maumee Express (1837-1838)
·         Ravenna Ohio Star (1852-1854)