Warren County Genealogical Society Warren County, Ohio Chapter of Ohio Genealogical Society About Us
(513) 695-1144	406 Justice Drive, Lebanon, Ohio 45036 Hours: 9 AM-4 PM Monday through Friday Driving Directions	wcgs@co.warren.oh.us

Our purpose is to build and promote interest in collecting and preserving genealogical records. We are here to assist you in finding your ancestors and relatives. We have many resources available to help you with your research, shorten your search and help you with court records. Our Library / Resource Room has been made available to us by the Warren County Commissioners in the New Administration Building at 406 Justice Drive. Our room is located on the lower level. This room is now the home for all books, records, and materials that our Society has collected. The public is welcome to come and use our resources at no charge. Our volunteer staff will be happy to orient you to our library and help you.  Email us if you have any questions or need our help.   If you would like to donate materials, click here to view our donation policy. 

 

Days open: Monday through Friday Hours: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM We are closed the same holidays as the Administration Bldg.
Membership Research Department Meetings Lineage Societies Library Holdings Directions Downloadable Forms	Warren County Genealogical Society Resource Library

Our Beginnings
    Warren County Genealogical Society History
    Charter Members
    Charter Officers
    History of the WCGS Presidents and Years Served
    WCGS Officer History
        President
        1st Vice-President
        2nd Vice-President
        Recording Secretary
        Corresponding Secretary
        Treasurer
        Historian / Archivist
        Heir Lines Editor
        Newsletter Editor
        Office Manager
        Membership, Publications & Technology
        WCGS Website    
    History of Officers & Major Committee Heads
    Current WCGS Officers

 

Warren County Genealogical Society (WCGS) had its humble beginnings in 1981 when a few local Warren County residents wanted to begin preserving Warren County records. On May 20, 1981, WCGS was recognized by the Ohio Genealogical Society, as an official chapter. Original board members included:  President Bart C. Gibbons; Vice President Leora Spindler; Corresponding Secretary Miriam Worley; Recording Secretary Pat Johnson; and Treasurer David Ledbetter, Jr. There were 64 charter members in Vol. 1, issue 1 of Heir Lines - September 1981 with more members in each issue of 1981 and 1982.  Dues were $5.00 single, $7.00 family

Starting in 1981, WCGS had its first mailing address at Marion Snyder’s home, 12 W. South Street, Lebanon, OH 45036. For the first year or so, members donated genealogical books they had; all of which fit into a car trunk, and put them on loan for a month or so at various Warren County Public libraries. These stops included: Salem Township Library in Morrow; the Mary L. Cook Library in Waynesville; the Mason Public Library; and the libraries in Lebanon and Franklin.  Two of the early dedicated volunteers that did all of this traveling were Helen Hutt & Nancy Burge.  The first meetings were held at the cafeteria of the old Lebanon High School, now Berry Middle School. Meetings were later held on the second floor of the Lebanon City Building; and later the Philippi Meeting Room at Otterbein-Lebanon Retirement Center, on S.R. 741 where there was ample parking, and a level entrance to the meeting room.  According to Dallas Bogan and his article in the Star Publications of April 14, 1999, page 12B,he wrote "Chet (Chester Dunn) tells the story that when the society was first started five family member sheets were on the agenda for the board members.  Bart Gibbons took one look at Chet's chart and said, 'we are cousins.' "  Pat Johnson commented, "A Big part of our beginning was the several seminars that we put on at the Presbyterian Church.  They were good money makers for us and put us on the genealogy map.  The first [seminar] was the biggest, as we had Elizabeth Simpson, a well known London England genealogist.  She was friends with Mary Jane Matz, who made arrangements for her to come here while she was in the States.  We also had John Heisy from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and George ___ who wrote books on researching your ancestors in various wars ... Back then there were no computers and seminars were an important way to learn how to research." 

The WCGS quarterly newsletter, Heir Lines, was first published in September of 1981.  For many years we had the Civil War discharges and portions of the deed index published in an ongoing series in Heir Lines. 

In August 1983, after letter writing by society members and the help of Judge Bowers, the County Commissioners were to vote on making a room available to WCGS in the old court house.  This was announced by Helen Hutt to open in January 1984.

By January 1984 WCGS finally moved to a more permanent location at 300 E. Silver Street, lower level (basement) of Probate Court Building. Judge Bowers made arrangements for WCGS to use two small rooms as a resource center in exchange for answering genealogical queries that came to the Court.   Betty Greer and Chester Dunn were the main volunteers. This is where our "library" began. Our collections purchased or donated by charter members had grown to fill one wall about 12 feet deep and 4 shelves high. The WCGS card catalog, referencing names in our Warren County books, was also started at this time. This is when we began asking new members (and old ones) to submit their family group records and pedigrees charts for their Warren County ancestors. Our first big project was an every name index for Beers History of Warren County, Ohio, with each name being written on a 3x5 card. Many volunteers helped by doing a number of pages from the History.   Upon completion, Beer’s History, was reprinted with our index in it. Some of the other early projects included the cemetery transcriptions and copying the 1880 Warren County, Ohio census by hand. Chester 'Chet' & Betty Dunn and the late Evelyn (Hall) Preest visited and transcribed tombstones from virtually every cemetery in Warren County. 

The Warren County Genealogical Society moved to the second floor of the Academy Building at 190 New Street, P. O. Box 296, Lebanon, Ohio 45036, about December 1997, while the new administration building was being built. Some of the faithful volunteers included: Chester Dunn, Dallas Bogan, Bob Mehl, Ruth Justison, Helen & Ralph Hutt, Dorothy Linkous, Bobbi Apking and Chuck Griffen.  Knowing the need for expanded space, the county commissioners provided WCGS the opportunity to help plan our resource center/library in the lower level of the new administration building next to Warren County Archives.

The Warren County Genealogical Society moved to its present location in the lower level of the new Administration Building, 406 Justice Dr., Lebanon, Ohio 45036, on May 25, 2001.  This new move made our records much more accessible to researchers and county employees. Our indexes have been a great resource to Archives and other county departments.

By the spring of 2001 we had our first email at wcgs@go-concepts.com. It was decided that a web page was needed to help researchers of Warren County, Ohio make contact with our society and to also better meet their needs. In August 2001, Dana Palmer was asked to create a website for Warren County Genealogical Society. It was decided by the board to make the website interactive featuring many databases of Warren County to help researchers quickly make a list of their relatives and sources listed in Warren County with the applicable reference pages so that volunteers in the Warren County Genealogical Society library could be more efficient in answering queries. Researchers could also bring in their list and we would help them obtain copies of original records listed on our website. It took about 6 months to create the website and by spring 2002 it was finished. We were provided with a county email, our current one, wcgs@co.warren.oh.us and launched our first website www.co.warren.oh.us/genealogy/home.htm. By spring of 2003 we revamped the website, including many more online indexes, and changed the name of our home page to our current one, www.co.warren.oh.us/genealogy/index.htm

• Our master indexes currently have over 603851 name entries, many of which are on our website. (as of January 2013)

• We have over 117 of our own publications available for purchase with at least 15 others scheduled for released sometime in the next few years. We also have at least 10 other Warren County related books published by various authors, which are available for sale through us.

• To date we have over 300 members in our society. About half of these memberships are for out-of-state researchers. We would love to have you join our society. Current membership is $10 for single members, $15 per couple, or $200 for life membership. Click here for our membership application (pdf).

• We exchange with more than 85 other quarterlies from genealogical societies, historical societies and libraries in Ohio and nationwide.

• Our stacks now shelf over 3000 genealogical, family books, town histories and smaller family folders. Many of these are for Ohio, specifically Warren County, but we do have others in various areas statewide, nationally, and internationally including state reference books for Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland. Numerous how-to-do it books regarding genealogical research can also be found on our shelves. We are always trying to add to our collection. If you have any resources you would like to donate, please email us.

• We have over 142 microfilms, many of these for local newspapers, census records and probate records.

• We have over 50 genealogical CD's as well as 70 CD's from World Family Tree.

• We enjoy using our 3 copiers ( 2 large and 1 transportable); 4 computers, 1 scanner and 1 microfilm / microfiche readers.

Currently we are working on digitizing tombstones called our "Virtual Cemetery" from all the cemeteries in our county; and also creating a master probate index including the years 1803-1996. If you would like to help with these or any of our other projects, please click here to be redirected to our project page.

Charter Members
(as of 1981, 1^st edition of Heir Lines)