Ohio, the 600-pound genealogy gorilla

There should be more liveblogging of genealogy gatherings. Diane Haddad at Genealogy Insider gives us a taste of this past weekend's Ohio Genealogical Society convention in Cincinnati.

You may have seen the maps of the US where states are sized according to population rather than land area, with California and Florida growing to monstrous size and the Rocky Mountain areas tiny slivers? Well, if you made a genealogy-society map of the Midwest, Ohio would be bigger than Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan combined -- a lot bigger. Haddad reports "about 600" on the scene in Cincinnati; the Indiana Genealogical Society meeting in Evansville earlier this month had a paid attendance of 90.

Another comparison might be with the Indiana Historical Society's August gathering, "Midwestern Roots," in Indianapolis. Time will tell.

Quakers and federal cases on line at the Indiana Historical Society

The April issue of the Indiana Historical Society's Genealogy and Family History E-Newsletter is out. Contents include a plug for IHS's August 15-16 conference in Indianapolis, "Midwestern Roots," with an impressive program I can't do justice to right now.

There's also a table of contents for the forthcoming issue of The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections, and a pointer to the Society's ongoing Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana, AKA the Quaker Records abstraction project, edited by Ruth Dorrel and Thomas D. Hamm. The first two volumes came out in print but the third is gradually appearing on line. This material isn't for casual browsing, but if you have Friends in your family tree it may be quite rewarding. Currently up are items from Hancock, Henry, Madison, and Rush counties.

The key URL to keep an eye on is IHS's Online Family History Publications. As of now the other publication listed there is the 23-page Name Index to the U.S. District Court Order Book, District of Indiana, 1817-1833, compiled by Doria Lynch.