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Guide to Seneca County Ohio genealogy. Birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

	Ohio Online Records

Seneca County, Ohio
Map
Location of Ohio in the U.S.
Courthouse
Address	Seneca County Courthouse 103 S. Washington St. Tiffin, Ohio 44883-2352 Seneca County Website

Historical Facts

• Parent Counties: Formed from Huron and Sandusky Counties in 1820 (1824).
  
• County Seat: Tiffin
   
• Neighboring Counties: Seneca County, Ohio residents may also have records in ^[1]Sandusky (north) · Wyandot and Crawford (south) · Hancock (west) · Wood (northwest) · Huron (east)

Boundary Changes

See an interactive map of Seneca County boundary changes.

Record Loss

Resources

Bible Records

Biography

Business Records and Commerce

Cemeteries

Cemetery records often reveal birth, marriage, death, relationship, military, and religious information.

See Ohio Cemeteries for more information.

Census

Church Records

Church records and the information they provide vary significantly depending on the denomination and the record keeper. They may contain information about members of the congregation, such as age, date of baptism, christening, or birth; marriage information and maiden names; and death date. For general information about Ohio denominations, view the Ohio Church Records wiki page.

Catholic

EXPLANATION ABOUT THE THREE CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN SENECA

Reed Assumption Church is sometimes mentioned as being in Reedtown, but it is really in the nearby country west of Reedtown, which is called the Reed area. There was a church, school, and cemetery that were called Reed Assumption until the parish was closed in 2005. The cemetery is still called Reed Assumption. The church building is still there, but not the school. No other buildings are left, except the church and maybe the rectory. The frame school was torn down in the 1960s (when a new school was built to serve the area and the parishes of St. Sebastian, Reed Assumption, and Marywood-St. Michaels. It was a public school system known as Seneca-Huron because St. Sebastian (Bismark) was in Huron County and Assumption (Reed) and St. Michael's (Franks) were in Seneca County. The public school system was formed earlier (late 1940s?) for financial reasons, but all the teachers were Catholic nuns and they had Mass and religion classes every day. The convent house was moved a mile or so away and is used as a private home. It is a few miles west of Reedtown. Reedtown is on a state highway and is a very small unincorporated village. The only remaining business is Reedtown Tavern and maybe a car/machine repair shop. However, quite a few homes are still there.

A couple miles away in the country is a place called Frank's Corner. This area is also known as Marywood. In the earliest times, it was called Thompson (Township). The church and the cemetery there were called St. Michael's. The cemetery is still known by that name, but when the Reed and Marywood parishes were closed, along with Bismark St. Sebastian, a few years ago, the three were consolidated into a new parish now known as St. Gaspar del Bufalo (yes, that is the way it is spelled). That parish uses the 1800's Gothic style church that was formerly St. Michael's. Quite a few homes are still located there.

These settlements and parishes are adjacent to each other and separated by only a few miles. Both parishes, as well as the adjacent St. Sebastian parish, to the east in Bismark, were very "tightknit" German settlements and remain such today, with many of the same family names since the mid 1800s.

• 1796–2004 Ohio, Diocese of Toledo, Catholic Parish Records, 1796-2004 at FamilySearch Historical Records – free. This collection includes images of parish registers recording the events of baptism, first communion, confirmation, marriage, and death in the Diocese of Toledo (Ohio), Roman Catholic Church. These records are accessed by browsing the images by county. In addition to traditional parish registers, this collection includes miscellaneous cemetery records, Books of the Elect, Professions of Faith, Sick Call registers, etc.
  

Court Records

Emigration and Immigration

Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups

Gazetteers

Genealogy

History

Local histories are available for Seneca County, Ohio. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories, see the wiki page section Ohio Local Histories.

Land and Property

Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts and indexes, mortgages, leases, grants and land patents.

See Ohio Land and Property for additional information about early Ohio land grants. After land was transferred to private ownership, subsequent transactions were usually recorded at the county courthouse and where records are currently housed.

Finding Land Records at Other Repositories

Additional land records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Seneca County, Ohio Land and Property Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• Family History Library Catalog(For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search).

Maps

• Family Maps of Seneca County, Ohio (land patent maps) at HistoryGeo.com ($). Free surname search.

Military

• Civil War servicemen from Seneca County served in various regiments. Men often joined a company (within a regiment) that originated in their county. Listed below are companies that were specifically formed in Seneca County.

– 8th Regiment, Ohio Infantry, Company A

– 123rd Regiment, Ohio Infantry

Company D

Company I

Company K

Naturalization and Citizenship

Newspapers

Seneca County, Ohio newspapers may contain genealogical value including obituaries, births, marriages, deaths, anniversaries, family gatherings, family travel, achievements, business notices, engagement information, and probate court proceedings.

To access newspapers, contact public libraries, Ohio Genealogical Society chapters, college or university libraries, the Library of Congress, Google News, or the Ohio Historical Society. The Ohio Genealogical Society Obituary Database is another source of newspaper information.

For more Ohio newspaper information see the Newspaper Guides on the wiki page Ohio Newspapers. Online Newspapers
Online Newspaper Abstracts
Newspaper Extracts and Abstracts in Book Form

Obituaries

Periodicals

Probate

Probate records created after 1852 are held by the Seneca County, Ohio Probate Court. From 1797 or the creation of the county, probate records were held by the Court of Common Pleas. Most counties transferred all records to the Probate Court, but in some circumstances, Court of Common Pleas records should be searched for records prior to 1852. Most records are housed at the Seneca County, Ohio Courthouse. Some records are on microfilm at the Ohio Genealogical Society and the Family History Library. For more complete information about the location of county probate records see:

• Carol Willsey Bell, Ohio Wills and Estates to 1850: An Index (1981). ^[2] FamilySearch Books Online - Free online copy.
  

See the wiki page Ohio Probate Records for information about how to use probate records.

Content: Probate Records may give the decedent's date of death, names of his or her spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, neighbors, associates, relatives, and their place of residence.

Record types: Wills, estates, guardianships, naturalizations, marriage, adoption, and birth and death records (1867-1908 only).

• 1790–1967 - Ohio, Probate Records, 1790-1967 at FamilySearch Historical Records – free. This collection consists of probate records and estate files from county courthouses in Ohio. The content and time period varies by county, with more records being added as they become available. This Collection will include records from 1789 to 1996. Currently, (September 2012) the collection is only searchable by browsing the images. A list of Fires that have destroyed records in the courthouses of several counties are listed on the Record Description page.
  

Finding Probate Records at Other Repositories

Additional probate records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Seneca County, Ohio Probate Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• Family History Library Catalog (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search).

Public Records

Repositories

Courthouse

Seneca County Courthouse
103 S Washington Street
Tiffin, OH 44883-2354
Phone: 419.447.0671

Probate Judge has birth, marriage, and probate, 
County Health Department has death records;
Clerk Court has divorce and court records from 1826;
County Recorder has land records^[3]

Family History Centers

• Introduction to LDS Family History Centers

Libraries

Museums

Societies

Seneca County Chapter Ohio Genealogical Society, P. O. Box 157, Tiffin, OH 44883-0841

www.senecasearchers.org

Taxation

Ohio tax records complement land records and can be used in place of censuses before 1820 or to supplement the years between censuses. Because only persons who owned taxable property were listed, many residents were not included in tax lists. There may also be gaps of several years in the tax records of some counties. For more information see the wiki page Ohio Taxation.

Finding Tax Records at Other Repositories

Additional tax records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Seneca County, Ohio Tax Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• Family History Library Catalog (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search).

Vital Records

 Birth

• 1800-1962 - Ohio, Births and Christenings Index, 1800-1962 at ancestry.com ($)

• 1908-1964 - Ohio, Birth Index, 1908-1964 at ancestry.com ($)

Marriage

Death

Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953 – Free name indexes and images at FamilySearch. Records include such information as birth date of deceased; city, county, and state of death; name of spouse if married; names of parents; maiden name of mother; name of informant; if deceased was single, married, widowed or divorced; and occupation of deceased. Finding Vital Records at Other Repositories

Additional vital records can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Seneca County, Ohio Vital Records in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
• Family History Library Catalog (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search).

Web Sites

• USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
• Family History Library Catalog

Places

Populated Places

“Marywood” – People often refer to a place called Marywood for a residence and/or marriages in Seneca County. There is no city called Marywood. In the “old times” when the local people spoke of Marywood, they were referring to the area around the three churches named Reed Assumption (which is in Reedtown); Saint Michael's (which has a Bellevue* address) and Saint Sebastian (which also has a Bellevue* address). Presently (2009), when people speak of Marywood, they generally are referring to Saint Michaels and/or a shrine called the Sorrowful Mother Shrine; you can learn more by going to the web at www.sorrowfulmothershrine.com.

The physical address of the Sorrowful Mother Shrine is: 
4106 State Route 269
Bellevue, Ohio 44811
419-483-3435

• Bellevue is a city that spans four counties: Erie, Huron, Sandusky, and Seneca
  
  

Neighboring Counties

• Crawford
• Hancock
• Huron
• Sandusky
• Wood
• Wyandot

References

1. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Seneca County, Ohio" in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_County,_Ohio (accessed 10 May 2012).
2. ↑ Carol Willsey Bell, Ohio Wills and Estates to 1850: An Index (Columbus, Ohio: the author, 1981). FamilySearch Books Online - Free online copy.
3. ↑ Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America, 10th ed. (Draper, Utah: Everton Pub., 2002), Seneca County, Ohio. Page 545 At various libraries (WorldCat); FHL Book 973 D27e 2002.

• This page was last modified on 13 June 2013, at 20:18.
• This page has been accessed 2,567 times.