This CD-ROM disk contains every word from seven different books that were originally published by the Genealogical Publishing Company. Together, these books contain some information for approximately 165,000 individuals, including everything from vital records to biographies. The CD-ROM contains marriage records, cemetery inscriptions, genealogies, censuses, biographical sketches, tax lists, newspaper abstracts, and vital records. It contains genealogies of families that migrated across the Ohio River and established the first settlements in the Northwest Territory, and it features, among a great many other records, the 1810 Ohio tax list, marriage records from parish and courthouse registers, cemetery inscriptions, and a roster of all Ohio soldiers in the War of 1812. Some of the listed records date back as early as 1787, when the Northwest Territory was opened to settlement, or from 1803, when Ohio became a state. Later years produced many more records as the population increased.

The following is a list of books included on the CD, along with a description of each written by Genealogical Publishing Company:

Ohio Valley Genealogies by Charles A. Hanna

This popular work contains genealogies of the first families who settled in Pennsylvania between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghenies, and genealogies of those families who migrated across the Ohio River and made the first settlements in the Northwest Territory, now part of Ohio. About 350 families are listed in alphabetical order, with records of the first immigrant settler, including place and date of birth and death, place of residence, name of wife and date of marriage, names of children and their dates and places of birth, and names of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, with Narratives of Incidents and Occurrences in 1775 by S. P. Hildreth

This work consists of biographical sketches from early Washington County settlers, many of whom were born under a monarch, fought in the American Revolution, assisted in the founding of the new nation, moved into the wilderness, and laid the foundation of a new state. In addition to the biographies themselves, Dr. Hildreth has included chapters on the settlement of Athens County and the town of Amestown, Ohio.

Ohio Cemetery Records; Extracted from The 'Old Northwest' Genealogical Quarterly

This work consists of all cemetery record articles published in The 'Old Northwest' Genealogical Quarterly between 1898 and 1912. It primarily contains tombstone inscriptions from cemeteries in the following counties: Athens, Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin (including the city of Columbus), Geauga, Guernsey, Jackson, Knox, Licking, Lorain, Madison, Pickaway, Portage, Ross, Trumbull, and Vinton. There also are some burial records and inscriptions from cemeteries in East Haddam, Conn., and Rutland, Mass., which were important departure points for migrations into the "Old Northwest." Many of the recorded inscriptions identify not only the age and death date of the deceased, but also the names of his parents, spouse, or children. Nearly twenty thousand persons are identified in the records.

Ohio Source Records; from The Ohio Genealogical Quarterly - Ohio Genealogical Society

This resource contains articles from The Ohio Genealogical Quarterly, a periodical so scarce that not even the Library of Congress has a complete set. By the time it ceased publication in April 1944, the Quarterly had turned out a voluminous body of data, chiefly cemetery records, tax lists (the 1810 tax list, in particular), newspaper abstracts, and vital records, the combined articles bearing reference to about 45,000 persons. Owing to the extreme scarcity of the Quarterly, this data is virtually priceless.

Ohio Marriages; Extracted from The "Old Northwest" Genealogical Quarterly by Marjorie Smith

All marriages recorded in "The 'Old Northwest' Genealogical Quarterly" are compiled alphabetically in this source. Altogether some ten thousand brides and grooms are listed with the date of their marriage, the name of the county the marriage took place in, and, sometimes, the name of the church and the name of the person performing the ceremony.

The following is a list of the marriage records included in this volume: Marriage Record, Franklin County (1803-1830); Marriage Records, Jackson County (1816-1826); Marriage Records, Licking County (1808-1820); Marriage Records, Marion County (1824-1825); Marriage Licenses Issued in Pickaway County (1810-1815); Marriages in Ross County (1803-1806); Early New Connecticut Marriages (Trumbull County) (1800-03); Marriage Record, Washington County (1790-1823); Friends' Marriage Records--Miami Monthly Meeting (1804-1828); Register of Marriages, Putnam Presbyterian Church (1841-1897); Parish Register of St. John's Church, Worthington, Ohio (1833-1875); Parish Register of St. Luke's Church, Marietta, Ohio (1821-1883); and Parish Register of St. Paul's Parish, Marion, Ohio (1849-1870).

Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812, published by the Ohio Adjutant General's Department

Here is the complete roster of all Ohio soldiers and officers of the Adjutant General's Department at Columbus, Ohio, and the War Department in Washington. It includes the names of about twenty five thousand soldiers and officers, with such information as rank, dates of service, and source of information.

Ohio County, Kentucky, in the Olden Days by Harrison D. Taylor

These recollections of Ohio County, Kentucky are packed with genealogical data on early families. This work features special sections devoted to the War of 1812, early land titles, biographies of Ohio County residents, and twenty-five hundred Ohio County marriage records before 1840.

Early Ohio Settlers, 1700s-1900s on CD-ROM is one of a series designed for use with Family Tree Maker. In order to use this disk, you must use either Family Tree Maker for Windows, version 3.02 or higher; Family Tree Maker for Power Macintosh; or the Family Archive Viewer, version 3.02 or higher. Family Archive Viewer is a free program that is useful for viewing the CD-ROM if you do not have one of the Family Tree Maker programs installed. Actually, Family Archive Viewer is really a "demo" version of Family Tree Maker for Windows. It has some functions disabled, but it is fully capable of reading the Early Ohio Settlers CD-ROM. There is no free viewer program for the Macintosh, however. Linux users also will not be able to use this CD-ROM without the use of a Windows emulator.

When writing this review, I used Family Tree Maker for Windows version 9.0 on an 800-megahertz Windows XP system with 512 megabytes of RAM memory. This computer is "overkill" for this CD-ROM; it would be quite happy on a slower system with much less memory and an older version of Windows, such as 95, 98, NT, 2000 or ME.

Like all the other CD-ROM disks I have seen that were produced by the partnership of Genealogical Publishing and Genealogy.com, this one was very easy to use. The display on the computer screen looks like an open book, with tabs for Introduction, Content, Index, and Pages of text. I found it easy to navigate around all seven books on this single CD-ROM disk. I started first with the Table of Contents. It lists all seven books. I was able to click on a book title, and then that book opened on the computer screen a second or two later. I found that I could page through the book, one page at a time. However, the fastest way to display desired information was to click on "Search Expert" and then enter a surname or other word of interest. Within a second or two, the first occurrence of that name was displayed on the screen.

Pages from the various books have been reproduced as images. The beauty of putting them all on one CD is that all the contents can be searched by a single electronic name index. These books do not have every word indexed. The index does, however, have the name of every person mentioned in these books. The result is a CD-ROM disk that is much easier and faster to use than the original, printed books.

I also found it easy to zoom in and out on a page, a useful feature when the original printing wasn’t too clear on the CD-ROM images. However, almost all of the images were very clear and easy to read. Unlike some other genealogy CD-ROM disks, I was able to "copy-and-paste" data from the Early Ohio Settlers into other Windows applications, such as a word processor or graphics editing program. I found the easiest way to print a page was to "copy-and-paste" it into a word processor and then print from there.

Early Ohio Settlers, 1700s-1900s is an excellent resource for anyone researching ancestors in that state. The software is easy to use and the information contained is first-rate. Early Ohio Settlers, 1700s-1900s sells for $29.99 (U.S. funds) plus taxes and shipping.

For more information about Early Ohio Settlers, 1700s-1900s or to order online on a safe and secure Web site, go to: www.genealogical.com/item_detail.cfm?ID=7528.

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