Hamilton County Genealogical Society Adds 11,400 Civil War Veterans to Website

Monument at Spring Grove

As we celebrate our independence this July 4th, the Hamilton County Genealogical Society thanks all veterans for their service to our country and helping to preserve the freedom that we celebrate and enjoy all year long. This holiday weekend marks the completion of our Make A Difference (MAD) project that was begun over two and a half years ago. It was undertaken to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the sacrifices that our veterans made during this four year struggle. 

The main goal of the project was to document the more than 11,400 Civil War veterans who are buried in Hamilton County, Ohio, create memorials for them on Find-A-Grave (if they were not already documented), and to then explore the various cemeteries within Hamilton County and photograph the grave stones of these soldiers if they still had a marker. This huge effort was completed in June 2016 by several dedicated volunteers. The names of these Civil War veterans have been compiled in a spreadsheet along with their birth and death dates, the name of the cemetery and place of burial, and the name of the company and regiment that they served in.

This PDF file is sorted in alphabetical order by veteran name. To view this information please visit the Cemeteries page under Local Records on our website at: http://www.hcgsohio.org/cpage.php?pt=63#CivilWarVets

 Also be sure to check on Find-A-Grave for additional information and a possible picture of the veteran’s grave. You also have the ability to include additional information about the veteran and family if known to share with others on the Find-A-Grave website.

Submitted by Jeff Herbert

Jewish Genetic Genealogy

Jewish Interest Group

Presentation Announcement

by Rick Cauthen

Israel Pickholtz

The Hamilton County Genealogical Society is extremely excited to announce that author, Israel Pickholtz, who resides in Jerusalem, Israel, will be presenting “Jewish Genetic Genealogy – A Study in Endogamy.” Mr. Pickholtz is the author of the book entitled “Endogamy: One Family, One People.” This book explores the topic of Jewish genetic genealogy and how it relates to the topic of endogamy.

            

Endogamy, for those readers who are not familiar with the term, simply means marrying mainly with in the tribe. In other words, Jews married and consequently reproduced only within the limits of the local community. As many of the fans of Jewish genealogy already know, Eastern European Jews spent their lives living in small little villages refer to as shtetls. Thus Jews reproduced within a very tight gene pool. When reviewing your DNA results in terms of countries of origin, when you spot European Jewish, you found a very accurate feature of your genetic history. This is unique for Jews of Eastern European descent. This is all the result of endogamy since the Jewish bloodlines have been kept very finite.

This presentation will take place on Thursday, August 4, 2016 at the public library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Main Library, third floor. The presentation will begin at 12:00PM to 2:00PM. The library is located at 800 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH 45202. Please make plans and mark your calendars now to join us for what promises to be a very exciting presentation.

Announcing a New DNA Interest Group

Southwest Ohio DNA Interest Group

For the last several years, more and more genealogists have shown an interest in learning how DNA could be used to confirm traditional genealogical research. This is referred to as Genetic Genealogy. In response to this need, I am proposing a new DNA Interest Group that would be regional in nature and serve, not only Hamilton County, but the surrounding region. I have contacted other DNA leaders in this region and have their support.

My vision is that we would present everyone with the “basics” and move on as rapidly as possible to some of the more advanced application topics.  At the initial program, the major companies that do DNA testing for genealogical purposes would be discussed, as well as the types of available tests. Participants would be strongly encouraged to purchase an autosomal test. Programs would be “stand-alone” with members choosing those that would be of interest to them. Introductory programs would consist of two parts:  1) an introductory lecture, and 2) the opportunity to work with your own data with the assistance of other participants.

Some of the proposed topics include:

      1)      Overview of companies and available tests

      2)      Autosomal tests

      3)      Y-DNA tests

      4)      MtDNA tests

      5)      Understanding Ethnicity Estimates

Applying Your Results

 1)      Gedmatch
 2)      Genome Mate Pro
 3)      DNAgedcom
 4)      Don Worth’s Visualizing Your Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer
 5)      DNA Land

These are just suggestions. Topics and their order of presentation are open for discussion.

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you think may be interested. Pam White (Butler Co.) Nan Harvey (Bloomington, IN) and I (Hamilton Co.) are all attending the Advanced Genealogy Course to be held in Pittsburgh at GRIP in July. I’m sure we’ll have more ideas after that.  Thoughts? 

Please email me, Kathy Reed, at programs@hcgsohio.org if you would like to be on a mailing list for this Interest Group or have any questions.

Please feel free to distribute this to others you think would be interested.