Lorain County, Ohio Genealogy

Guide to Lorain County, Ohio ancestry, family history, and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Historical Facts

 * Parent Counties: Formed from Cuyahoga, Huron, and Medina Counties 26 December 1822.
 * County Seat: Elyria

Description
The county was named by early settler Heman Ely for the French province of Lorraine. It's county seat is Elyria and was founded December 26, 1822. It is located in the Northcentral area of the state.

Neighboring Counties
Erie County • Huron County • Ashland County • Medina County • Cuyahoga County

Boundary Changes
On 4 July 1805, all lands of the Connecticut Western Reserve from the original Treaty of Greenville line (the Cuyahoga River, Tuscarawas River, and the portage between them) to 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania line between the 41st Parallel and Lake Erie, were purchased from local Indian tribes in the Treaty of Fort Industry, opening the lands of Lorain County to white settlement.

Townships in the Western Reserve were supposed to be surveyed to be five miles square, however, mistakes were made in surveying the line between the lands belonging to the Connecticut Land Company (ending in Range 19) and the Firelands (beginning in Range 20), causing townships in Range 19, which became the western townships of Lorain County (Troy, Rochester, Brighton, Camden, Henrietta, and Brownhelm) to be much narrower. These townships were set aside as "surplus lands" and used to equalize the amounts of land received by stakeholders in the Connecticut Land Company.


 * For animated maps illustrating Ohio county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation Ohio County Boundary Maps" (1788-1888) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.


 * All lands in what is now Lorain County were at first part of Trumbull County.
 * 1807 - Geauga County created, with the townships of Columbia, Eaton, Ridgeville, Troy (now Avon), Carlisle, Elyria, Sheffield, Russia, Amherst, Black River, Henrietta, and Brownhelm, as part; the others remaining with Trumbull County.
 * 1808 - Portage County created, receiving the townships previously attached to Trumbull County, namely Grafton, Penfield, LaGrange, Huntington, Wellington, Pittsfield, Rochester, Brighton, and Camden.
 * 1810 - Cuyahoga County receives all of the northern townships previously attached to Geauga County.
 * 1811 - Huron County received the townships of Carlisle, Elyria, Russia, Amherst, Henrietta, and Brownhelm, along with the parts of Black River and Sheffield Townships lying west of the Black River. All of Huron County was attached to Cuyahoga County until it was organized in 1815.
 * 1812 - Medina County created, receiving the townships previously attached to Portage County. All of Medina County was attached to Portage County until it was organized in 1818.




 * 1822 - Lorain County was formed and took in parts of:
 * Huron County: the townships of Carlisle, Elyria, Russia, Amherst, Henrietta, and Brownhelm, along with the parts of Black River and Sheffield Townships lying west of the Black River.
 * Cuyahoga County: the townships of Troy (now Avon), Ridgeville, Eaton, and Columbia, along with the western half of Lenox Township (now Olmsted) and the parts of Black River and Sheffield Townships lying east of the Black River.
 * Medina County: the townships of LaGrange, Wellington, Pittsfield, Brighton, and Camden.


 * Until the county government was organized in 1824, its parts remained attached to their former jurisdictions.


 * 1827 - Lorain County received the townships of Grafton, Homer, Penfield, Spencer, Sullivan, Huntington, Troy, and Rochester, while the western half of Lenox Township (now Olmsted) was added back to Cuyahoga County. Its northern boundary was set in the middle of Lake Erie along the international boundary with Canada.
 * 1840 - Summit County created, with the townships of Homer and Spencer added back into Medina County to compensate.
 * 1846 - Ashland County created, which received the townships of Sullivan and Troy.

Record Loss
There is no known history of courthouse disasters in this county.

Cemeteries

 * Cemetery Inscriptions of Lorain County, Ohio (Elyria, OH: Genealogical Workshop of the Lorain County Historical Society, 1980). Comprehensive listing of grave sites and records for public cemeteries all over the county, from the arrival of the earliest settlers from the East on up to 1980. Valuable shortcut to finding information that may no longer be legible on original stones. Available on the Lorain County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society website and from local libraries.

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

Church Records

 * Pittsfield Community Church Originally two churches, the Pittsfield Methodist Church, formed in 1824, and the Pittsfield Congregational Church, formed in 1836 (and originally organized as the Evangelical Union Church of Christ), which built permanent structures in 1845 and 1846, respectively. Both buildings were destroyed in the Pittsfield Tornado of 1965, at which point both churches elected to combine into the Pittsfield United Church of Christ, which rebuilt by 1966. The church became independent and was renamed Pittsfield Community Church in 1997.

Court Records

 * Lorain County Clerk of Court of Common Pleas Justice Center 225 Court St 1st Floor Elyria, OH 44036-0749 Hours: 10am-4:30pm. Maintains records of Civil, Criminal, Domestic Relations and 9th District Court of Appeals cases.
 * Lorain County Clerk of Court of Common Pleas Online Case Docket contains records from 1988 onward of Civil, Criminal, Domestic Relations and 9th District Court of Appeals cases.

Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
African American

Bigglestone, William E. They Stopped in Oberlin : Black Residents and Visitors of the Nineteenth Century - Scottsdale, Ariz. : Innovation Group, C 1981. - xxv, 252 p. F499.O2 B53 1981

Local Histories

 * Boynton, W.W., The Early History of Lorain County, (Elyria, Ohio: Lorain County Agricultural Society, 1876). Digital copy at Google Books Internet Archive Ancestry ($)(Indexed)


 * Williams, W.W., History of Lorain County, Ohio, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Williams Bros., 1879). Digital copy at Google Books Internet Archive


 * Henes, Ernst Louis, Looking Back on Lorain County, (Wellington, Ohio: Southern Lorain Historical Society, 1978).


 * Lorain County Sesquicentennial, 1824-1974, (Elyria, Ohio: American Mult-Service, 1974).


 * Wright, G. Frederick, A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Civic and Social Development, (Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Pub. Co., 1916). Digital copy at Google Books Internet Archive Volume 1:; Volume 2:


 * History of the Western Reserve, Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3 by Harriet Taylor Upton (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1910).

Land and Property

 * Lorain County Recorder, Administration Building, 226 Middle Ave, First Floor, Elyria, OH 44035. Phone: +1 (440) 329-5148. Hours: M-F 8am-4:30pm. Maintains official county land records, among other documents, going back to the county's beginning. A searchable index, along with certain document images, is available for documents beginning in the late-1980s/early-1990s to present through their website, or in the Recorder's Office.

Maps

 * Maps of Ohio (1788-1940)

Civil War
Civil War service men from Lorain 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 Lorain County.


 * 1st Regiment, Ohio Light Artillery, Batteries B and E
 * 41st Regiment, Ohio Infantry, Companies F and H
 * 107th Regiment, Ohio Infantry, Company G

Newspapers
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at the Library of Congress lists a plethora of local newspaper titles along with libraries and historical societies which retain archives of them. Please note that their listings are extensive, but not comprehensive, as local libraries may retain archives which are not listed.

Daily newspapers have been published since the 1800s in Elyria and Lorain. Elyria newspapers often published information and announcements relevant to the entire county (being that Elyria is the county seat) with much focus on areas in the central and southern parts of the county, including at times western Cuyahoga and Medina Counties, eastern Erie and Huron Counties and northern Ashland County. Lorain newspapers usually focused on the lakeshore communities. Information published in both cities often includes births and deaths, marriages and divorces, hospital discharges, legal notices, court filings, land transfers, and personal news (for example, "Mr. John Smith and family from Wellington spent the day with his mother-in-law, Mrs. Wm. Whitney in LaGrange on Saturday.").

Daily newspapers in Cleveland also cover news and events in Lorain County, including obituaries.


 * NewspaperARCHIVE contains an extensive number of newspaper issues from both Elyria and Lorain, which are browseable and searchable, although not every issue of each newspaper is available (a fee is required, however it is availabe free of charge if accessed from this Elyria Public Library web page); their archives are also available with membership at Ancestry.com.
 * Microfilm and original archives are kept at local libraries.

Weekly community newspapers have been published for over 100 years in Amherst, Oberlin, and Wellington. More recently, The Sun Sentinel covers Avon, Avon Lake, and North Ridgeville.


 * The Oberlin College Library Special Collections include fully-searchable images of the Oberlin News-Tribune from 1941-1945, and an index to three Oberlin newspapers from 1860-1936.

Online Newspapers Online Newspaper Abstracts Newspaper Extracts and Abstracts in Book Form

Obituaries

 * Oberlin High School obituaries from the 1800s to present.
 * Lorain County Obituaries More recent obituaries. Free.

Probate
Online Probate Records
 * 1786 - 1998 Ohio Wills and Probate Records 1786-1998 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1789 - 1996 at FamilySearch.org — images
 * 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.
 * Lorain County Probate On-line Records Search contains all probate related records, including marriages, since 1990 . The search also includes marriage records (bride's and groom's names only) back to about 1930.
 * Lorain County Probate Court, Justice Center, 225 Court Street, 6th Floor, Elyria, OH 44035. Phone: +1 (440) 329-5175. Fax: +1 (440) 244-6261. Holds marriage and probate records from 1824 to present, along with countywide birth and death records from 1867 to 1908.

Courthouse
Lorain County Courthouse 226 Middle Avenue; Elyria, OH 44035; Phone: 440.329.5428 Probate Judge has birth, marriage and probate records; Clerk Court has divorce records from 1850 and court records from 1824; County Recorder has land records; Elyria Public Library and Loraina County Historical Society have books of genealogical interest

Lorain County is located in Northeast Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie just west of Cleveland. It has long been home to great agriculture and industry, though both have declined due to suburban sprawl spilling out of Cuyahoga County, and the emigration of manufacturing jobs to other regions. Although the county was created in 1822, records were not kept by it until the county government was organized and began to function in 1824.

Family History Centers

 * Westlake Ohio Family History Center

For additional nearby Family History Centers, search online in the FHC directory. Put your town name in the top search box.

Libraries

 * The Ohio Room at the Elyria Public Library System Central Library, 320 Washington Ave, Elyria, Ohio 44035. Phone: +1 (440) 323-5747. Fax: +1 (440) 323-5788. M-R 10am-7pm, F-Sa 12pm-4pm, Su 1pm-5pm. contains an extensive collection of local history and genealogy books, atlases, maps, obituary indexes, city directories, and high school yearbooks; also included are microfilm archives of county newspapers beginning in 1832, the United States Census for local counties, and Lorain County Probate Court birth, death, and marriage records and indexes.
 * Lorain Public Library System
 * Cleveland Public Library
 * Herrick Memorial Library, 101 Willard Memorial Square, Wellington, Ohio 44090.  Phone: +1 (440) 647-2120. Hours: M-R 9am-8:30pm, F-Sa 9am-5pm, Su Oct-Apr 1pm-5pm.


 * Barbara and Mike Bass Library/Community Resource Center, Lorain County Community College, 1005 N Abbe Rd, Elyria, Ohio 44035. Phone: +1 (440) 365-4026. Toll-free: +1 (800) 995-5222 Ext 4026.
 * Oberlin College Library, Oberlin College, 148 W College St, Oberlin, Ohio 44074.  Phone: +1 (440) 775-8285.  Fax: +1 (440) 775-6586

Societies
The Connecticut Western Reserve  was a part of northeast Ohio originally intended for settlement by Revolutionary War refugees from Connecticut. The former Connecticut Western Reserve  lands were in the modern counties of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Huron, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Trumbull fully, but also in parts of Ashland, Mahoning, Ottawa, Summit, and Wayne counties in Ohio.

The Research Library at the Western Reserve Historical Society History Center  is the premier repository for Cleveland, Ohio and Connecticut Western Reserve history material. One of the principal strengths is its manuscript collections. The WRHS collection has original land records, genealogies of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, biographies, histories, and family Bibles.

Other Societies


 * Lorain County Historical Society, 509 Washington Ave, Elyria, Ohio 44035.  Phone: +1 (440) 322-3341.
 * Western Reserve Historical Society, 10825 East Blvd, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.   Phone: +1 (216) 721-5722.
 * Lorain County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society, PO Box 865, Elyria, Ohio 44036-0865. Website contains user-contributed birth, death, marriage, and court records, as well as obituaries.


 * Black River Historical Society, 309 W 5th St, Lorain, Ohio. Phone: +1 (440) 245-2563.
 * Sheffield Village Historical Society
 * The Southern Lorain County Historical Society/Spirit of '76 Museum, PO Box 76, 201 N Main St, Wellington, Ohio 44090.  Phone: +1 (440) 647-4367.  Museum is housed in Downtown Wellington in a former cold storage warehouse during Wellington's cheesemaking heydey.  Contains extensive collection of local and period artifacts and exhibits, along with a library containing historical maps, Wellington High School yearbooks, and an archive of the Wellington Enterprise.  Admission is free.
 * 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Society for descendants of soldiers who fought in this regiment during the Civil War.

Taxation

 * Lorain County Records Retention Center, Early Years Tax Duplicates Digital scans of county tax duplicate records from 1824 to 1969 available for free in PDF format.

Birth
Online Birth Indexes and Records


 * Ohio Births and Christenings, 1821-1962 (FamilySearch). Name index to birth, baptism and christening records from the state of Ohio. Microfilm copies of these records are available at the Family History Library and Family History Centers.


 * The probate court in Lorain County began keeping birth and death records when required by state law in 1867 . Birth and death certificates have been recorded as of 20 December 1908.


 * Lorain County Records Retention Center, Probate Court Early Birth and Death Records Digital images of county birth and death records from 1867-1908 available for free in PDF format. These records may also be obtained through the probate court.

Original Birth Records on Microfilm

Marriage
Online Marriage Indexes and Records


 * 1789-2013 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1800-1958 - at FamilySearch — free; Index.
 * 1800-1942 - at FamilySearch — index


 * 1800-1958 - "Finding Lorain County Marriage Records Using the 'Ohio Marriages, 1800-1958' database" is a blog article by Chris Staats that offers helpful tips for locating marriage records when visiting the probate court.
 * 1930 - Lorain County Probate On-line Records Search contains all probate related records, including marriages, since [[1990 . The search also includes marriage records (bride's and groom's names only) back to about 1930.
 * 1824 Lorain County Probate Court maintains countywide marriage records from 1824 to present.
 * 1950 to present - Ohio Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics maintains an index of marriages that occurred in Ohio from 1 January 1950 to present, and divorces that occurred in Ohio from 1 January 1954 to present.

Original Marriage Records on Microfilm

Death
Online Death Indexes and Records


 * The probate court in Lorain County began keeping birth and death records when required by state law in 1867 . Birth and death certificates have been recorded as of 20 December 1908.
 * 1840-2001 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1854-1997 - Ohio Deaths and Burials, 1854-1997 (FamilySearch). Name index to death and burial records from the state of Ohio. Microfilm copies of these records are available at the Family History Library and Family History Centers.
 * 1867-1908 - Lorain County Records Retention Center, Probate Court Early Birth and Death Records Digital images of county birth and death records from 1867-1908 available for free in PDF format. These records may also be obtained through the probate court.
 * 1908-1953 - Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953 (FamilySearch). Name index and images of Ohio statewide death certificates.

Original Death Records on Microfilm

Divorce

 * Lorain County Clerk of Court of Common Pleas Online Case Docket contains divorce records from 1988 onward.
 * Lorain County Clerk of Court of Common Pleas retains divorce records from its Domestic Relations Division.

Divorces are stored in the Records Division, Room 109 Phone 440-329-5511 or 440-329-5489 Fax 440-329-5400 chart@loraincounty.us

Civil Records
See also: Ohio Vital Records

Official birth and death certificates are available from:


 * Lorain County General Health District's Vital Statistics Office for births and deaths occurring countywide from December 1908 to present except in the City of Lorain.
 * Lorain City Health Department for births and deaths occurring from December 1908 to present only within the City of Lorain.
 * Ohio Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics for births throughout the entire State of Ohio from December 1908 to present, and deaths occurring in Ohio from 1 January 1954 to present.

Web Sites

 * Lorain County, OH History, Records, Facts and Genealogy
 * Lorain County OH Genealogy
 * Ohio Genealogy Network Community on Google+
 * Ohio Genealogy Network Group on Facebook