The launch of the New Year in January is the time to reminisce about the accomplishments of the old year and to plan for the projects that will define the year ahead. Last year was one in which an enormous amount of data was added to the web site including an obituary collection that now has articles on about three thousand people among which are obituaries on about 550 Civil War veterans. These obituaries have mostly been located and sorted by volunteers at the Society office, and then often notations with some additional genealogical information were added before being sent by mail to the volunteer typists.
More Church records were added last year and a lot of new information was included. Thanks largely to Mary James and Marian Schoonover there are now twelve Gallia County Churches on the site. The information about each varies, but includes a history for most and some membership lists, baptismal records, marriage records and clergy lists for many. Since these church records have been added that section of the web site has been much more heavily utilized. Many genealogical records are now available from many online sources, but church records are unique in that the best way to access them is on local sites like this and church records have unique information that is generally not available elsewhere.
Also added last year was the section on Gallia County Post Offices provided to us by Mary Crittenden. It includes a listing, history and location of each post office and the names of all of the postmasters.
Last year was one of emphasis on the Civil War. Besides the CW obituaries the site has been updated to include military rosters and regimental histories from units in which many Gallia County men served. Articles about Gallia County’s involvement in the war include the visit by Morgan’s Raiders, the battle in Cheshire Township against remnants of Morgan’s army, and the Jenkins raid on nearby Point Pleasant in which many civilian Gallia County residents participated. Previous additions include photographs of about sixty Civil War veterans and a complete list of veterans in the Civil War Families lineage society.
The web site now includes more than one thousand web pages. Last year there were 54,000 visits to the site during which over 250,000 pages were viewed. The statistics provided to us by our web host, 3Essentials, allow us to monitor the traffic and to see which pages get the most usage. This in turn allows us to focus on providing information that seems to generate the most interest. The cemetery database is the busiest
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section and so there has been an emphasis on constantly updating it with corrections and with new entries. The new entries come from current newspaper obituaries and other contemporary sources and from information supplied by you, the users of this website, who send us documented information that for various reasons was missing from the original walkthroughs.
The ability to use a search engine to search the site was added several months ago. Try it and see which pages come up when you type in a subject, a location or a surname.
Lastly I wanted to mention the extensive use of photographs on the site. There are about 600 photos in addition to the 8,000 photos of tombstones. Some are historical in nature and some are current. This is our outreach to those of you who can’t visit Gallia County in person. Genealogy can be so much more than names and dates. We believe that being able to see where our ancestors lived and to be able to place them in historical context can make the experience so much more meaningful.
In the coming year we will continue to add more material and we would, of course, like to solicit your input. Please use the email link at the bottom of this page to send us your suggestions and comments.
Neil Elvick, Webmaster
One of our many goals as a genealogical society is to provide the research and help that you need in your Gallia County genealogical pursuits. We have thousands of records in our office including, births, deaths, marriages, wills, estates, guardianships, cemetery records, obituaries, lineage society applications and family histories. We also have access to census records, Civil War sites and many online records. We will research these records for you at no cost or you may come in and research them on your own.
We are totally an all volunteer, non-profit organization so we must charge 25 cents for copies and postage to mail. Most people are kind enough to send us a donation as well. Frequently they support us by becoming a member and by joining our lineage societies. We are exceedingly grateful for donations as like any small business we have rent, insurance, website fees, gas, electric, phone, copier lease and many incidental day to day expenses. We want to help, we want to not charge a fee and so far we are able to do that.
So, ask away. We love helping you and there are many talented volunteers available to do just that. Just click on the email link below.
Henny Evans, President
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