Local Ohio counties still work together to connect past to present for genealogical research

At the time, membership in the council included history-oriented organizations in a 15-county area: Auglaize, Butler, Champaign, Clark, Clinton, Darke, Fayette, Greene, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby and Warren.

The council called upon people skilled in gravestone rubbing, bookbinding and photo reproduction. Writers, photographers, calligraphers and handwriting experts were also used in preservation, protecting birth, death and marriage records from destruction or neglect.

According to the article, by then-DDN special writer Nancy Bain, the idea for the council was conceived to support bringing the National Genealogical Society Convention—now the NGS Family History Conference—to Dayton.

In summer 1982, Vicki Frazer Arnold, liaison between the Miami Valley Genealogical Society and the MCC-OGS, wrote letters to historical and genealogical groups about the council. The council became official in January 1983, with Arnold as president.

Together, the 15 county chapters worked together as a council, as a regional support system to preserve documents for future generations.

For instance, the 1983 article references a situation in a nearby county where “old wills and estate packets” were kept in an old barn, unprotected, with “rats all over.” The efforts made to preserve those documents were seen at the regional level.

But the 1990s saw the end of the Miami Valley Council, perhaps explained by the wider availability of state records and the prominence of OGS.

Some counties have since dissolved membership with OGS for various reasons, although each of the 15 still retain historical societies.

“Instead of thinking of just Southwest Ohio, we started thinking of Ohio as a whole,” said Garry Knight, current MCC-OGS president. “I can’t speak to the projects that the [Miami Valley Council] did. But to me, the availability of records in Ohio compared to other states and the condition of them, I don’t think we’ve really lost anything.”

He presumed that the council provided a framework and coordination between counties at the time, but was ultimately redundant with the state-organized efforts.

“A really bad analogy is like VHS and Betamax,” Knight said. “They’re both doing the same thing, one just became more popular.”

MCC-OGS has always communicated with local chapters that border Montgomery County, such as Warren, Miami and Greene, but the ties don’t go much farther than that. However, with tools such as video conferencing, the group has started to communicate more with other chapters without having to travel.

And by that same token, records can be just as easily accessed without the need to fire up the microfiche.

But with all genealogical records, it comes down to ease of access — and whether or not old wills and estate packets are kept in old barns, unprotected, with rats all over.

Despite the Miami Valley Council of Genealogy’s disbandment, advancements in technology since the 1980s, as well as the increased interest in the field, suggests that each county can still work together to connect the past, present and future of genealogical research.

When asked what role that looming tech like AI plays in all of this, Knight said: “AI will be a tool that will eventually allow for more efficient searches. Right now, it’s really good at parsing data, but what it’s not good at is discernment.”

Erin Harris, MCC-OGS webmaster, is currently taking a Applied Generative AI for Digital Transformation course through MIT. She’s tested AI tools to see how they work with genealogy research.

One of the tests Harris conducted was using AI from the perspective of someone who knew nothing about genealogy research, or their family. She queried AI to tell her a story about her real-life grandfather, who died in 1994. It then provided a fictionalized account of her grandfather’s life, pulling from various index websites and filling in the gaps with a flowery story.

“A good researcher will always confirm the information with other sources,” Harris said. “On the technical side of how far away AI is from being 100% accurate, it’s only going to give you what it thinks it can find. And if it’s pulling up false information from another source, then it’s just regurgitating false information from another source.”

AI, she said, is a good first pass; but it shouldn’t be taken as gospel without cross-referencing and further investigation. Being more specific in queries to AI—like asking for a non-fictional account—may be helpful, as well.

In the 1990s, the technology to handle mass amounts of records pales to what it’s able to handle today. The advent of the internet made records more accessible to experts and casual researchers alike, as OGS did for state records.

AI is part of the next phase of genealogical research, but currently not without a few rats of its own.

“The data still has to be there in a form that AI can consume and parse through,” Knight said. “But it’ll get better.

Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music and art scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.

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