Ohio Biography

Online Resources
Biographies provide useful genealogical information such as a person’s birth date and place; names of family members, including maiden names; education; occupation; and social, political, and religious affiliation. They may also contain a physical description of the person, previous residences, and immigration information. Biographies are the product of family knowledge or previous research about early settlers and prominent citizens of a state, county, or town. Local histories may contain biographical sketches of lesser-known people.
 * Ohio Biographies
 * Ohio Biographies Project.
 * Ohio Biographical Sketches, 1876 ($)
 * History of the Western Reserve, Vol. 3, e-book
 * County and Town Histories, with biographies
 * Biographical and historical memoirs of the early pioneer settlers of Ohio, with narratives of incidents and occurrences in 1775. By S. P. Hildreth, e-book
 * Representative men of Ohio, 1900-1903, e-book
 * Ohio, the future great state, her manufacturers, and a history of her commercial cities, Cincinnati and Cleveland, with portraits and biographies of some of the old settlers and many of the most prominent business men, e-book
 * Historical collections of Ohio: containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc. related to its general and local history with descriptions of its counties, principal towns, and villages, e-book
 * Historical collections of Ohio ... an encyclopedia of the state, e-book
 * A biographical cyclopædia and portrait gallery of distinguished men, with an historical sketch, of the state of Ohio, e-book

Biographical Encyclopedias

 * Upton, Harriet Taylor. History of the Western Reserve. Three Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing, 1910. A digital version is available through the FamilySearch catalog entry. The complete text is also viewable at Google Books


 * Upton, Harriet Taylor and Lake County Genealogical Society, An Every-Name Index to the History of the Western Reserve (Mentor, Ohio: Lake County Chapter, OGS, 1988.) ;


 * Galbreath, Charles B. History of Ohio. Five Volumes. (Chicago, Illinois: American Historical Society, 1925.) The last three volumes contain biographical sketches of prominent Ohio citizens. (The entire 3,562 page book is viewable at HeritageQuest online, through most public library websites.)


 * Boardman, Alice, Marjorie Price, DAR (Ohio), Ohio Historical Society, The Ohio Surname Index (Columbus, Ohio:Ohio Historical Society, 1984) Ohio Historical Society,1984; An every-name card index to about 450,000 persons mentioned in various biographical sections of Ohio county histories.

Family History Library
The Family History has a large collection of county histories which include biographical information. To access biographies in the FamilySearch Catalog, use a Place-name Search for:


 * OHIO - BIOGRAPHIES
 * OHIO, [COUNTY] - BIOGRAPHY
 * OHIO, [COUNTY] - HISTORY
 * OHIO, [COUNTY], [TOWN] - BIOGRAPHY
 * OHIO, [COUNTY]. [TOWN] - HISTORY

Statewide Collections

 * Ohio Biographyis searchable by name, county and occupation.
 * Ohio Biographies
 * Ohio Biographies