Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society
Researching Warren County and beyond! We are a FamilySearch Affiliate Library!
Announcements
50% Off ALL Used Books
Take advantage of our Summer Reading Sale through August 31, 2025, and take 50% off ALL Used Books for sale on our website. That’s right, ALL USED BOOKS ARE 50% OFF! This is your chance to pick up an item or two for yourself or start on some early holiday shopping for your favorite Genie. You can find the Used Books by visiting their very own page on our website:
https://www.wcgsohio.org/shop-used-books
Add the items you would like to purchase to your cart, and then when you View Cart, click the words “Enter a promo code” and enter SAVE50. It will apply the discount to all Used Books you are purchasing. Have fun shopping!
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Video Now Available Online
The video from the virtual program presented July 9, 2025, by Kelli Bergheimer on "FamilySearch Labs: Full-Text Search" is now available online in the Members Area. WCGS Members must log in to view it. Thank you to Kelli for a great program and also for allowing us to record it and post the video on our website for our members! This video will be available until September 8, 2025.
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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 June 2025, 52,972 users have viewed 926,753 page views in 76,662 sessions. It seems incredible we are nearing ONE MILLION page views!
In July 2024 we started our Support the Star! Fundraising Campaign with a goal or raising $20,000 by July 4, 2025. Thank you to all who have donated, both money and past issues, to our campaign. We just received a significant grant from the City of Lebanon’s Civic Donation Program through the Warren County Foundation and want to extend a special note of appreciation to them. Although we did not reach our goal of $20,000, we did raise $15,205.09! We will continue our fundraising efforts and continue to digitize and add even more pages and issues of this newspaper online, providing FREE access to all.
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.
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!