NEW BOOKS for CINCINNATI RESEARCH

The library at last has received more books for research on families who came into Jackson County through Cincinnati. Late into the 19th Century some local families were traveling to Cincinnati for marriages and burials. I'm not sure about births.

In any case, the books available for use in the Local History area of the library are:

• A Guide to Genealogical Resources in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio, 5th Edition
• Hamilton County, Ohio, Guide to Recorder's Indexes and Documents, 1794-1988
• Index to Selected Hamilton County, Ohio, Recorder's Books, 1801-1820
• The WPA Guide to Cincinnati, 1788-1943
• Hamilton County, Ohio, Index of Early Deed Books, 1804-1806 and 1814-1817
• Restored Hamilton County, Ohio, Marriage Records Supplement, 1850-1884
• Marriages Recorded in Hamilton County, Ohio, 1870-1884: Probate Court Original Marriage Licenses & Returns, Probate Court Restored Marriage Licenses & Returns, and Probate Court Catholic Marriage Banns
• Hamilton County, Ohio, Burial Records, Volume 16, Walnut Hills (Originally German Protestant Cemetery) 1843-1993
• Hamilton County, Ohio, Church Burial Records, 1850-1859 Hamilton County, Ohio, Church Burial Records, 1860-1869
• Selected Hamilton County, Ohio, Church Baptism Records, Early-1859
• Selected Hamilton County, Ohio, Church Baptism Records, 1860-1869

Let me know if you have questions about them -- or just come in and use them!

UP & DOWN at the COURTHOUSE

Even county officials learned a bit about work in other offices when they took time Tuesday, April 7, to talk to a group of researchers seeking to learn more about what's where in the Jackson County Courthouse at Brownstown.

The researchers visited the newly re-organized basement and attic record-storage areas that hold the history of individuals and of Jackson County. Talking with the visitors in the JCPl-sponsored visit were Treasurer Kathy Hohenstreiter, Assessor Bev Gaiter, Recorder Traci Hubbard, Auditor Debra Eggeman, and Clerk Sarah Benter.

As Sarah Benter and others pointed out, the number of records is growing and growing and growing. While some are expendable after a few years, many are important to the long-term orderly operation of the county -- tracking transfer of property and decisions in lawsuits, recording marriages and divorces, telling the tales of convicted criminals, and listing names and relationships for those fortunate enough to locate an ancestor who named offspring and collaterals in a will.

The basement storage areas have some new filing cabinets that make for more orderly access to more recent files and will get better as the Clerk reaches her goal of re-organizing to make more room. As makes sense, the most frequently used and most recent records are kept in the Clerk's office. Other office holders do the same and have some older records in various storage areas. All agree that records are fast filling available space.

A few of the clerk's less-lused books from the basement have been moved to the attic where confidential records of the court and the prosecuting attorney are kept. Those books of the clerk's office still are public records and can be access through advance arrangements.

But in a few years the space will be gone again and officials already need to be thinking about where more space will be made. Other records need to be moved from the current storage where they are exposed to heat, cold, humidity, and possible pests (and in some cases damage and theft) to safer storage.

It's up to those of us who want the records to survive in usable form to let the county commissioners and council members know that safekeeping of those records now needs the consideration that already and continually is given to paving roads, housing prisoners and dump trucks, and reviewing other matters over which they exercise home rule.

Does anyone have thoughts on how protecting those records may be accomplished in the environment that always will be competing with "more urgent" projects the commissioners consider more important?

Spring Into Family Research!

New faces continue to arrive in the local history area at the Seymour Library these days. They deserve congratulations for using the end of winter to “spring” into their search for family roots.

They’ve committed the time to start or continue their research – and an increasing number of them have made time for some classes to look for additional research possibilities.

It’s exciting and infectious to watch these individuals make their discoveries! You can see the investments of time pay dividends that can be relied on for years to come – for the researchers and their families.

One of the best rewards from family and local history research is finding explanations for family and/or community tickles, traditions, and taboos. There’s a grain of truth in most stories. Sometimes research reveals the details – maybe not exactly as the story has been told – but still recognizable as the probable source of the tale.

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From Little Drummer Boy to Old Pioneer

If you’ve used Heritage Quest Online (HQO), you know the rewards just waiting for you to find the right combination of names, dates and places for family or community history discoveries.

And you probably know that with your JCPL library card you can do that research at home, to use a cliché, in your “jammies” at 3 o’clock in the morning. (If you have any trouble getting logged on, give us a call at the library.)

A great find for me came from locating someone other than a relative (although that has happened as well) … and confirming the story of a Revolutionary War veteran buried in a deep woods about a mile south of the northwestern JC village of Kurtz.

The Owen Township Cemeteries book published in 1990 by the Jackson County Genealogical Society identifies John Edwards (1762 Wales-1836 Indiana) as a drummer in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment. Information on the tiny Edwards Cemetery was compiled by Mary B. and Malcolm W. Buckner and Lucy C. Arthur in 1987 and updated by Ruth Fox in 1989.

By logging into HQO and going to the Revolutionary War database where I searched the surname Edwards and Pennsylvania, I found 15 pages – images of original documents held at the National Archives (NARA) – in view on my screen. The file includes the NARA file number that accompanies the information published by JCGS.

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Orchard & Other Miscellaneous Records

Jackson County once supported many fruit orchards. At least two records, one at the courthouse in Brownstown and both on microfilm at the Seymour Library, may give some insight if your ancestor participated in such an operation.

The miscellaneous record at the courthouse, also on microfilm at the library, preserves agreements such as one made in December 1867 between Howard Cordell and Henry C. Dannettell. The record said Cordell agreed to clear and clean a “passel of land,” about 20 acres, for Dannettell before March 1, 1868, and to plant the “said piece of sand with good grafted … fruit trees in rows 20 feet apart.”

Cordell was to include 300 apple trees and fill leftover space with peach trees in addition to planting two rows of evergreens on the north side to protect the fruit trees from the wind. The owner would pay taxes, Cordell would help with pruning, and the men would share the fruit equally for 15 years.

Should the trees have been producing by 1870 and still producing as anticipated by 1880, it’s possible the agriculture censuses, also on microfilm at the library, would record the results of the harvest.

The information isn’t earth-shaking … but if it’s someone you are researching, these little tidbits would certainly add flesh to the barebones vital statistics.

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