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 ($)
 * History of the Western Reserve, Vol. 3, e-book
 * County and Town Histories, with biographies
 * Biographical and historical memoirs of the early pioneer settlers of Ohio, with narratives of incidents and occurrences in 1775. By S. P. Hildreth. Also at: HathiTrust, Internet Archive, Ancestry ($).
 * 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

Biographies in Local Histories

 * Biographical information is often found in state, county, and town histories.
 * Towards the end of the 19th century, began publishers soliciting short biographical/family histories from local founding families, offering to publish them in an upcoming local history. This then became an incentive for family members to buy a copy of the book.
 * Families represented were not necessarily prominent. Practically everyone living there, especially in the Midwest, counted as an early settler.
 * These biographies often start with the first member of the family to settle in the area, and detail their descendants at the time of publishing. They may tell where the family moved in from. Children's marriages often are given, with maiden names included.

Finding Biographies

 * The county Wiki page lists several county histories. It also lists local libraries, and societies which probably have copies of local histories.
 * Many histories are no longer under copyright and can be found in the following online, digitized book collections. Search with keywords "History" and "the name of your locality" (state, county, or town).
 * FamilySearch Books
 * Google Books
 * World Cat
 * HathiTrust
 * Internet Archive
 * The FamilySearch library has extensive collections of these local histories. Many are digitized. Search the FamilySearch Catalog under your locality for the topics "Biography" and "History".

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.

FamilySearch 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