Record Atlas
6 eras · 1763–2026 · 160 places

Ohio

Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Marietta, Chillicothe, Toledo. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1763–1783 Britain - Province of Quebec from 1774 no registers survive

Britain gained the region from France in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, and the Quebec Act of 1774 annexed it to the Province of Quebec. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ceded it to the United States.
1783–1787 United States - land claimed by Virginia and Connecticut until their cessions National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Virginia ceded its western claims in 1784 but reserved the Virginia Military District, about 4.2 million acres between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers, to pay its Revolutionary War veterans in land. Connecticut ceded its western claims in 1786 but kept the Western Reserve strip in the northeast, which it sold to the Connecticut Land Company in 1795 or 1796.
1787–1803 Northwest Territory FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Created by the Northwest Ordinance of 13 July 1787; the government was established at Marietta on 15 July 1788, with later capitals at Cincinnati (1790-1799) and Chillicothe (1799-1803). Connecticut ceded jurisdiction over the Western Reserve in April 1800. Virginia Military District land was surveyed by metes and bounds, not the rectangular survey used elsewhere, so claims are irregular and often overlap.
1803–1867 State of Ohio FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Ohio was admitted as a state on 1 March 1803. Virginia issued Military District grants until statehood; Congress extended the deadline for surveying and patenting claims several times, last on 3 March 1855, and on 18 February 1871 the unsurveyed, unsold remainder was ceded to Ohio. The Toledo Strip on the Michigan line was disputed in the Toledo War of 1835.
1867–1908 Ohio - county probate courts record births and deaths FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

From 1867 each county's probate court recorded births and deaths as one-line entries in ledger books; an earlier law of 1856-57 was generally disregarded. There is no statewide index before 20 December 1908, so the county of the event must be known.
1908–2026 Ohio - statewide registration FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Statewide registration began on 20 December 1908. The Ohio History Connection holds death certificates from then (the end of its holdings is given as 1963 or 1970 depending on the source), and the Ohio Department of Health holds birth certificates from that date.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1763–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

160 places on this ground

1742 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1682 more.

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