About | Brick Walls & Buckeyes

Who I am

I'm Joanna, a family-history researcher with more than 30 years of experience, and the person behind the Brick Walls & Buckeyes YouTube channel and this website. I started out the way most people do, with a few names and a lot of questions, and I have been working on stubborn Ohio families ever since.

Why this site exists

Ohio is a hard state to research at first. Its counties were carved from larger ones, its early land was surveyed under several different systems, and many families arrived from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New England with records scattered behind them. When I could not find a single place that explained where to look, I started writing it down.

The result is a set of county-by-county research guides for all 88 Ohio counties, western Pennsylvania county guides for families who came across the border, video series on the rivers, trails, canals, and treaty lines that shaped settlement, and blog posts on specific records such as Ohio death certificates.

How the guides are made

Official sources first. Guides point to the Ohio History Connection, the Ohio Genealogical Society, FamilySearch, county offices, and other primary repositories, so you can check what I say.
Dates and ranges are checked. Record ranges (for example, Ohio death certificates held at the Ohio History Connection run 1908 to 1970) come from the holding institution, not from memory.
Honest about gaps. If a source does not say something, the guide says so rather than guessing. See About My Research Our Pledge.
Corrections welcome. Offices move, websites change, and records get digitized. If something is out of date, tell me and I will fix it.

What is free and what is not

The guides, blog posts, and videos are free. A small number of extras, such as research cheat sheets and a low-cost Ohio death certificate search service, are available in the shop. The site may show advertising, and the shop and some links may earn a small commission; none of that changes what the guides say.

Start here

Ohio Records: Start Here

A statewide overview of the records every Ohio researcher should know.

Read the Guide

County Index

Pick an Ohio county and open its research guide.

Find a County

Pennsylvania to Ohio

Where western Pennsylvania families came from and how to follow them.

Pennsylvania Guides

My own research

I also research my own family. The My Research pages show the brick walls I am working on, with proven facts, DNA-supported claims, hypotheses, and ruled-out ideas kept separate.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, or a brick wall of your own? Use the contact page or post it on the Brick Walls board.

About Brick Walls & Buckeyes