Time to Move On
The Henry County Genealogical Society, aka Henry County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society, has officially disbanded as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. There simply was not enough local interest to keep the society going.
We are in the process of digitizing all our publications and turning them over to the Edwin Wood Library in Deshler, Ohio. We haven’t worked out all the details yet on how the library will honor requests for publications, but be assured that a PDF version of every publication will be available for sale electronically, both at the library and via email requests. The library has full authority over pricing and availability, so please contact them to arrange for delivery either via post or email attachment.
The address for the Deshler Library is:
Edwin Wood Memorial Library
208 Northeast Ave.
Deshler, OH 43516
(419) 278-3616
director@phlibraries.org
Why Do We Have Two Websites?
The Henry County Genealogical Society website (henrycountyohiogenealogy.org) and the Henry County Families website (henrycountyfamilies.org) are one and the same organization. We are in the process of migrating to a WordPress-based site, and both sites will continue to have roles to play for the near future.
The site you are on now is our supplemental site, where we will be posting information of interest to researchers who have family ties to Henry County, Ohio. We hope that it will be a place that people will visit, not only to learn about themselves through their ancestors, but to contribute their knowledge to the site for the benefit of others.
Notice Regarding Publications
As stated above, all our publications will be available electronically (PDF) through the Deshler Library. Email them at director@phlibraries.org for help. Visit our Publications Page for a complete listing of what is available.
What We Offer
The now-defunct Henry County Genealogical Society had been in existence from September 1986 to 2020. In 2003 we created our website to make our holdings available to the widest possible audience. You will find on the site a complete listing of all of our books, CDs, pamphlets, and microfilms, all of which are available to the public at the Wood Memorial Library in Deshler.
As soon as we created the website, we began to populate it with databases of vital records, photographs, military rosters, and much more. You can access all our data at databases. Not only do we have birth, death, marriage, and cemetery records, but many other data repositories, such as:
- Court of Common Pleas Index (25,167 entries)
Index of cases in the Court of Common Pleas. Includes divorces, civil actions, foreclosures, quiet titles, and many more types of cases. (In progress, done through letter K in book 1 only). Please keep in mind that this is only an index; to see the packet of information, you will have to go personally to the Clerk of Courts office in the Henry County courthouse, look up the name by volume and page number, and request the office retrieve the folder for you from the archives. The Clerk of Courts office is not required to perform this retrieval for family researchers, so we ask that you not harm the good will we have with that office. Please use this privilege responsibly. - Henry County History Vol. 1 Photos
This database is complete and contains 740 photos and captions that appear in Henry County, Ohio, Vol. 1. We recently uncovered the originals of many of the photos that were used in the first publication of this volume. Because of the higher quality of originals and owing to improvements in our equipment, the quality of these photos is significantly better than those in the other two volumes. - Henry County History Vol. 2 Photos
This database contains all the photos that appear in Henry County, Ohio, Vol. 2. The captions are keyword retrievable, which adds another tool you can use to search your ancestors. There are 525 photographs with captions, more or less. A browse feature has been added, but needs fine-tuning. - Henry County History Vol. 3 Photos
This database contains more than 600 photos and captions that appear in Henry County, Ohio, Vol. 3. The browse feature for these photos works nicely, but needs some work yet. Please note: there are currently more captions than photos. - Early Obituaries Index
This database is an index of nearly 1800 obituaries from Henry County newspapers from 1852 to 1885. - OSU Extension Photos
This wonderful collection of photographs from 1927 to 1994, complete with searchable captions, was made available to us by the Ohio State University Extension of Henry County. This project was completed in the summer of 2007, and inlcudes 800 photographs. If you find any mistakes in the captions, or if you can add names, please use the Contact Us page to let us know. - 1948 County Directory
Each record has the name, street/road, post office, spouse’s name, occupation, names and ages of children, and names and relationship of others living there. Does not include Napoleon City.
In addition to our library holdings and online databases, the Henry County Genealogical Society also offers every newsletter we have ever printed.
All of our information is keyword retrievable. For information that is not in a database, there is a search box in the top right of every page that lets you find information quickly and accurately. If there’s something you can’t find on our site, don’t hesitate to contact us and ask — if it’s in our ability to find it, we will.
Thank you for visiting the website of the Henry County Genealogical Society!
