Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society
Researching Warren County and beyond! We are a FamilySearch Affiliate Library!
Announcements
Membership Renewal Time
We are continuing our membership drive for 2026. Membership fees are $25 for a regular membership (either single or family), and Life memberships are $250. New for 2026, members will have access to six of our WCGS publications in the Members Area! The books selected currently sell for $72.00, giving you added value to your membership as a show of appreciation for supporting WCGS. You can easily join WCGS or renew your membership online at https://www.wcgsohio.org/join-or-renew. Including an optional donation with your renewal helps us to keep these rates as affordable as possible and is greatly appreciated. Please contact us at 513-695-1144 if you would like a Membership Application sent by postal mail.
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New Book by Dana Palmer!
We just received word that Dana’s new book, Ultimate Guide to Mastering FamilySearch, is now available as an eBook, with the print version coming in mid-November. And even better, there is a pre-release discount being offered! Dana is a wealth of knowledge and those who have attended her programs, presentations, and classes know how much information she shares and the great attention to detail she provides. This is a perfect gift for holiday giving to ALL of your genie friends and will definitely be on our wish lists.
For more information, please visit Dana’s website:
https://genealogical.com/mastering-familysearch-by-dana-ann-palmer/
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Western Star Analytics and Support the Star! Update
Since the fall of 2018, our Alleen Stephenson Digital Newspaper Project, sponsored and maintained by the Warren County Genealogical Society, has provided free public access to digital images of The Western Star from 1807 through 2001 on the Ohio Memory Project. With the addition of issues through 2001, there are now well over 160,000 pages online, with more in the digitization process. As of the end of September 2025, 63,959 users have viewed 1,015,216 page views in 91,066 sessions. It seems incredible we have now surpassed ONE MILLION page views!
Thank you again to all who have donated to make this venture possible and to those of you who keep donating! We received word that two more batches covering June 2002 through May 2005 are nearing completion and will be uploaded soon. If you would like to donate, or find more information about The Western Star and the Alleen Stephenson Digital Newspaper Project, please visit our permanent website page dedicated to The Western Star.
You can search this online newspaper collection by using the "Western Star" blue button at the top of every website page or by visiting Alleen Stephenson Digital Newspaper Project on the Ohio Memory Project.
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A Guide to Our Many Websites
As of August 2025, our original website (wcgsoh.org), which launched Spring 2002 and was kindly hosted (at no cost to us) on the county servers, was finally taken down. With the recent revamp of the county email addresses and website URLs, our website was not carried over to the new format. Keep reading for some great news below!
Our new website (wcgsohio.org) was launched late June 2021, and has allowed us to share news with those interested, information about our Society, events, and programs, and begin building a research resource for those connected to Warren County. It has allowed our members to join or renew WCGS online using a credit card or PayPal account, supporters to donate quickly and easily, and customers to purchase our publications and used books for sale.
As of late 2021, Ancestry.com has restored the entire Warren County GenWeb project on RootsWeb.
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohwarren/index.htm
Our Virtual Cemetery on RootsWeb was also restored in late 2021.
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohwarren/Cemetery/burial.htm
While it is great the archived sites can be accessed, they cannot be updated, and some information is completely outdated and incorrect.
Enter Dale Grimm, who was trying to copy our GenWeb sites onto new servers so we would have the ability to preserve the information and update the sites. Unfortunately, Dale passed away August 3, 2024, while the copies were still incomplete. Fast forward to August 2025 and the incredible Randy Cummings! Randy has kindly offered to take on the monumental task of not only getting complete copies of our Warren County GenWeb site and Virtual Cemetery online again, but also our old website! This is on top of the rest of the OHGenWeb sites (and a few others) he is also working on. We are very excited and grateful!
So, keep watching these sites, they will eventually be the most recent AND most complete versions, and responsive so you can view them easily on any of your devices. We will keep you updated as to his progress and when the old website is back to use for reference.
https://wcgsoh.org (Coming Soon!)
https://warren.ohgenweb.org/Cemetery/burial.html
For more information about which websites Randy is helping, please visit https://genwebs.org/. If you are interested in helping Randy with a small donation toward covering the costs of hosting these sites (including ours!), you can do so at this page on his website: https://genwebs.org/donate/
**DO NOT USE any old email addresses ending with @co.warren.oh.us to contact us. They no longer work. You can find our postal address, telephone number, and a Contact Form on our About Us page.**
Upcoming Events
We are fortunate to have members and email subscribers from all over the world. Some upcoming meetings, programs, and events will be held virtually using Zoom to enable everyone interested to be able to participate.
Zoom invitations to Virtual Events are sent via Mailchimp email. To receive the Zoom invitation, please sign up for our email list using the e-News subscription form at the bottom of the page.
***You MUST be on our email list at least 24 hours in advance for Virtual Events.***
If you are new to Zoom, the first 1:22 minutes of this YouTube video may be helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAMDxH_H_Cs
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Flyers for programs and events can be found on our Events page.
Since the fall of 2018, the Alleen Stephenson Digital Newspaper Project has provided free online public access to digital images of the Lebanon Western Star from 1807 through 1922 on the Ohio Memory Project. These digital images were created from original copies of the newspaper located at the Ohio History Center in Columbus.
The online collection can be found by clicking the blue button with the title "Western Star ONLINE!" at the top of this section. A smaller version of the same button is a permanent link located directly above the menu on all pages.
The Alleen Stephenson Digital Newspaper Project is sponsored and maintained by the Warren County Genealogical Society. Using digitization and OCR technology, it provides free public access to nearly 27,000 pages of this historical newspaper. There are some issues missing, but the entire collection on hand is browsable and searchable by titles, names, or dates.
This project is dedicated to the remarkable Alleen Stephenson and was made possible through the generosity of Alleen's son and daughter-in-law, J. Todd and Rebecca Stephenson. For more than 60 years, Alleen wrote a much-loved column about the Kings Mills community that celebrated and preserved many aspects of the County's history.
The Western Star is Ohio's oldest weekly newspaper that started with the first issue on February 13, 1807, and ended with the last publication on January 17, 2013. This newspaper covered mainly Lebanon and southern Warren County. The first publisher was John McLean (March 11, 1785 - April 4, 1861), who was an American attorney, a political activist who served in the United States Congress, and a justice of the Ohio and the U.S. Supreme Courts. He started his legal career in Cincinnati and moved to Lebanon, Ohio, to open a law practice and dedicate his time to opening and running a weekly newspaper.
Recently, we were given a few complete issues of the Western Star publication. These are a GREAT addition to our collection of Warren County information. We would like to expand this collection. If anyone has some editions that have been saved and are no longer of use to you, please consider donating them to us. We are interested in issues from any time period. These can be dropped off or sent to us at the WCGS Resource Library, 406 Justice Drive, Lebanon, Ohio 45036.
August 27, 2022 - WCGS Chapter Meeting and Program
"UNESCO World Heritage Update for the
Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks"
presented by Todd Stephenson
Todd Stephenson is a retired petroleum geologist and seasonal volunteer geological advisor for the Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve. He grew up in Kings Mills and graduated from Kings High School in 1973, Ohio University in 1977, and the University of Cincinnati in 1979. Todd’s Stephenson Family ancestors were early natives of Warren County (First Families of Warren County) who lived on a 70-acre farm, three miles west of Fort Ancient in Turtlecreek Township. Todd is a member of both the Warren County Genealogical and the Warren County Historical Societies. He is also a member of the Ambassadors Group, which is a group of people selected by the leadership of the Ohio History Connection to help coordinate and communicate the status of the UNESCO World Heritage nomination for the Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. Todd is married to Becky, who is an avid genealogist, and they have two adult children, Joel and Heather, who live in Texas.
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During this presentation, Todd Stephenson will provide the latest news and status information from the Ohio History Connection regarding the nomination of the Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site which includes Fort Ancient near Oregonia, Octagon Works in Newark, and Mound City sites in the Chillicothe area. He will also provide some insights to the scope of the origins of the raw materials that were brought to Ohio and then fashioned into tools, ornaments, pipes, weapons, etc.
Many thanks to Todd for allowing this program to be recorded, and also to Joe Hackman for recording and posting it on YouTube and airing it on Lebanon's Channel 6. This event was held at the Armstrong Conference Center, courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society.
About WCGS
The Warren County Genealogical Society (WCGS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to create and promote interest in collecting and preserving genealogical records. We are here to assist you in finding your ancestors and relatives and have many resources available to help you with your research. WCGS is a Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society.
Kroger Community Rewards
An easy way to support WCGS each time you check out at Kroger is to participate in the Kroger Community Rewards Program.
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Visit https://www.kroger.com and sign into your Kroger account.
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Click the icon above your name to access “My Account” and look for Community Rewards on that page.
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Select Community Rewards and search for us either by Organization Name or Number and enroll in the program:
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Organization Name – Warren Co Chpr of the Ohio Genealogical Soc
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Organization Number – SU662
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Then, every time you shop and use your Kroger Plus card, Kroger will make a small donation to WCGS! Yay!