Brick Walls & Buckeyes
Every county in Ohio holds a paper trail: deeds, probate files, tax lists, pension papers. This is where we go looking for the ancestors hiding behind them.
Thirty years at the record counter
Brick Walls & Buckeyes is built on three decades of hands-on Ohio research — courthouse basements, probate ledgers, land tract books, and the occasional dead end that turns out not to be dead after all. Each Short walks through one county's records, one soldier's pension file, or one family's paper trail, sourced from primary records rather than compiled trees.
If you've got Ohio roots and a brick wall of your own, you're in the right place.
Follow a soldier. Follow a county.
Patriot Paths
Revolutionary War soldiers whose descendants migrated west — tracing the family from the enlistment roll to the far side of the frontier.
Fold3 & NARA sourcedOhio Patriots & Pioneers
Veterans who personally settled in Ohio, profiled from their NARA M804 pension files — service, struggle, and the land they finally called home.
Pension File #551+88 counties. One record room at a time.
Formation, settlers, probate, land, tax, churches, newspapers, repositories — every Ohio county gets the same eight-episode treatment. Some are finished, some are underway.
Open the County Index