There was a good article by Kimball Perry posted at cincinnati.com last week that dealt with the many records posted by the Hamilton County Probate Court. It set me to searching records at the site, and I can tell you personally that this site has something for anyone who has Cincinnati/Hamilton County roots.
Using the site isn’t as easy as just typing a 
surname into the search engine. This isn’t Ancestry.com. I’d compare it more to the experience you would have if you were visiting the Probate Court research room itself and searching through the books. You first check the index, which is often found in the front of the digitized volume – and then go to the appropriate page to view the document itself. There is a good explanation of the volumes available for each record category – and how to go about searching them for your ancestor. It’s not fast – but it is effective, saving the researcher the cost of a trip to Cincinnati, as well as copy costs.
According to Perry’s article, “The project started after Cissell took office in 2003 and decided to preserve 1,600 books, each weighing 30 pounds, and their 1.1 million pages by digitizing them and putting them online. Before this, only documents after 1983 were available online.”
While the documents are being digitized, they are also being placed on microfilm for archival storage. That may seem reversed for those of us who clamor to see microfilmed records digitized. However, the truth is that the most archival method of document storage currently available is still microfilm. The Probate Court has teamed with the University of Pennsylvania to complete the project, as the University became the custodian of a number of the old probate books, following courthouse fires in the county. A private contractor has been hired to digitize the pages at the cost of $95,000. All of the other work is done by Probate Court workers.
The online digitized documents, some 219 years old, include the following:
Minister’s Licenses – 1963-1975
Birth Registrations & Corrections – 1941-1994
Probate Court Journal Entries – 1791-1837
Physician Certificates – 1919-1987
The Hamilton County Probate Court is most proud of Spencer Tracy’s 1923 marriage license, found at the site.
