Ohio Online Historical Photos Research

The Ancestor Hunt regularly adds and updates new collection links, as well as searches for and fixes broken links.
(This page's most recent update is December 2024)
______________________________________


An old proverb states that “the eyes are the windows into the soul.” A genealogy corollary is that “a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors.”

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos of the period when they lived. And it is important to complete research that one attempts to understand the environment that surrounds our ancestors’ lives if one wants to truly appreciate what they went through. 

So where can they be found?  Obviously, the best resources are our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries, and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years, there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, the name of a building, or a historical event, and find what is available.

For the state of Ohio, what collections are available for you to browse and/or search online?  Here is a list of sites to start with. Please feel free to add in the comments other online resources that you might be aware of in the state.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Ohio Historical Photo Archives

For historical photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

For all Free Ohio Collection Links in 24 Genealogy Categories, go to the By Location Page, click on Ohio, and then click on the category of interest.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

3 replies on “Ohio Online Historical Photos Research”

Thanks for posting this great information! I collect vintage photos and recently found one from Ohio. I will see if I can post it to one of these sites.
By the way, I could not get the first two links to work. Others were fine.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *