Adoptions, Guardianships and Orphanages
Adoptions
The Ohio Department of Health houses more recent birth and adoption records of people born in Ohio and adopted anywhere in the U.S. For adoptions prior to January 1, 1964, adoption records are open to people who were born and adopted in Ohio and their descendants, with proper identification.
For adoptions in Hamiltion County between 1964 and September 18, 1996, adoption records are sealed and only opened by an order of Probate Court. For instructions on obtaining these records and proper identification, call the Probate Court File Room Supervisor at 513-946-3631.
Adoption records may also be found with the records of children in orphan asylums.
Guardianships
Process
Historically, if there were minor children when a parent died, the court would appoint a legal guardian for the children until they reached the age of 21, as part of the estate process: Common Pleas before 1852, Probate Court from 1852 forward. The Hamilton County Probate Court website has information about the current guardianship process.
Guardianship Records on the Probate Court Site
The Hamilton County Probate Court has digitized many of its records, including these guardianship records:
- Guardianship docket (index), 1852-1974
- Guardianship docket, 1852-1974
- Estates, trusts and guardianships docket and cases, 1852-1984
- Estate and guardianship docket and cases, 1791-1847
Guardianship Records on FamilySearch
- Guardians dockets, 1901-1907, 1922
- Administrators and guardianship bonds, 1791-1847
Guardianship Records on Microfilm at CHPL
- Applications for minor guardianship, 1884-1897,
- Guardianship docket records with index, 1852-1900
Records of Children in Orphan Asylums
Over 100,000 children spent part of their childhood in nineteen Hamilton County orphan asylums in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More than half of these children were not “full orphans” – they had lost one parent but not both, or both parents were living but not able to take care of their children. Some children stayed in orphan asylums only a few weeks or months until their families were able to reclaim them. Many children were placed in other families in distant counties or states, with or without adoption. These records contain precious genealogical information for countless families with roots in Hamilton County: birthdates, birthplaces, birth parents, foster parents, residences, and many other family details.
Types of Orphan Asylum Records
- Admission and dismissal records
- Child and family histories
- Surrender records (parents releasing custody to the asylum)
- Indenture/placement/adoption records
- Agreements with foster families
- Visitors’ observations of children in foster homes
- Reports of daily activities
- Letters
- School reports and grades
- Newspaper articles
- Financial accounts
- Board minutes with names of children
| NOTICE: The Cincinnati History Library and Archives is updating access to their online catalog. Until the new website is up and running, the links to their indexes and book, photo, manuscript and journal catalogs from this page are not working. |
The records of six orphan asylums are available for research at the Cincinnati History Library and Archives (CHLA), which has placed many indexes and finding aids online. The collections at CHLA include:
- Children’s Home of Cincinnati, 1864-1924, finding aid in the register at CHLA; records also at the Children’s Home (now Best Point Education & Behavioral Health). “Children’s Home of Cincinnati Surrender Records, 1865-1890,” The Tracer (September 2002-June 2004), with names of parents or guardians, birthdates and birthplaces of children.
- Cincinnati Orphan Asylum, 1833-1948, records in the collection of the Convalescent Home for Children (successor to the asylum), finding aid and list of children bound from the asylum and to whom they were bound, 1835-1851, in the register at CHLA.
- German General Protestant Orphan Home, 1849-1973, finding aid on the CHLA website; records also at Beech Acres. Names in admission records, orphan registers, journals on children, and financial records on the CHLA website, many names in The Tracer (February 2011-November 2011); six sets of German records have been translated into English and are stored with the original records at CHLA.
- Home for the Friendless and Foundlings, 1855-1973, records in the collection of the Maple Knoll Hospital and Home (the name used after 1955), finding aid on the CHLA website. Names in foundling histories, daily activity reports, admissions, and board minutes on the CHLA website.
- New Orphan Asylum for Colored Children, 1844-1967, finding aid on the CHLA website. Names in foster home cases, closed orphan cases, board minutes, and lady managers’ minutes on the CHLA website.
- St. Aloysius Orphan Asylum, 1837-1992 (now Best Point Education & Behavioral Health).
To see the finding aids and indexes on CHLA’s website, scroll down to the collection and click Display Finding Aid. Use Control-F to search for names. CHLA’s privacy rule restricts records within the last seventy years to the subject, so that only people named in those records can view them.
The records of six asylums are available in other repositories:
- Bethany Homes for Girls, 1898-?, and Boys, 1909-1934, at the Archives of the Community of the Transfiguration
- Boys’ Protectory, 1868-1972, and St. Vincent Home for Boys, 1905-1934, at the University of Notre Dame Archives
- House of Refuge, 1850-1852 and 1883-1885, Case files are online at Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library (CHPL) and Record of Commitments (1869-1882, 1891-1902), an index, financial records and payroll records are online at the Archives and Rare Books Library of the University of Cincinnati (UC)
- St. Joseph Orphan Asylum, 1852 to date, at the St. Joseph Orphanage
- Catherine Booth Home, 1909-1998
- Evangeline Booth Home, 1917-after 1930
- Boys’ Protectory, 1868-1972
- Our Lady of the Woods (Girls Town), 1858-1972
- St. Joseph Infant Asylum, 1873-?
- St. Vincent Home for Boys, 1905-1934
- Probably Mount St. Mary Training School, 1873-1959
Records before 1920 are available.
HCGS Published Orphan Asylum Record Indexes
HCGS has published two volumes in the index series on children's records, both available in our online store (follow the title links).
 Hamilton County, Ohio, Children's Records: The Children's Home, 1864-1919, (Available in our store with a 20% discount for members. You must log into the website first.) Authored by Jeffrey G. Herbert and published in 2023, this index volume contains the names of over 45,800 children who entered the Children’s Home of Cincinnati, Ohio between April 1864 and December 1919. Only a small portion (~11%) were surrendered and placed in foster homes or adopted. Most were subsequently returned to their families. A great deal of family information was recorded when the children entered the home, which makes this a valuable source for family history researchers as well as those researching social conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Subsequent documents record where surrendered children were placed and what happened to them in their new homes, sometimes until they reached adulthood. Children who were legally adopted and given a new name are indexed by both their birth name and adopted name to make it easier for the researcher to correlate. Hamilton County, Ohio Children’s Records: Six Orphan Asylums, 1829 – 1919. (Available in our store with a 20% discount for members. You must log into the website first.) New, August 2024! Authored by Jeffrey G. Herbert and published in 2024. This index contains the names of over 17,700 children who entered the six major orphan asylums located in Hamilton County, Ohio between October 1829, and December 1919. Of those children who entered, only a small portion were total orphans (i.e. both parents were dead). Most were subsequently returned to their families, or upon reaching the age of 14 years old, were placed in an apprenticeship to learn a trade or skill. Valuable family information was recorded when the children entered the asylums, which makes this an excellent resource for family history researchers, as well as those researching social conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The information recorded for the children entering the asylums varies by institution and period. This index records the name of the child, date of admission, birth date or age at admission, names of parents (if listed), date of dismissal, and where they went after dismissal. There is usually more information available for the child and their family in the original records. The references in the index will lead researchers to these original documents and the repositories where the records are located.
The six orphan asylums covered in this index are: Cincinnati Orphan Asylum, St. Peter Female Orphan Asylum, St. Aloysius Orphan Asylum, German General Protestant Orphan Asylum, St. Joseph Orphan Asylum, and New Orphan Asylum for Colored Children.
- Deb Cyprych, “Cincinnati Orphan Asylums and Their Records, Parts One and Two,” The Tracer (February and May 2011). Detailed histories about all of these asylums, with bibliographical references and descriptions of records.
- Deb Cyprych, “Children’s Home of Cincinnati Surrender Records, 1865-1890,” The Tracer (September 2002-June 2004). History of the Children’s Home and abstracts of records.
- Christine S. Engels & Ursula Umberg, “German General Protestant Orphan Home Records, 1849-1973,” The Tracer (February 2011), 1. History of the Orphan Home and inventory of its records. Many names are indexed in the 2011 issues.
- Reg Niles, Adoption Agencies, Orphanages and Maternity Homes, An Historical Directory. The book lists orphan asylums and adoption locations, including 40 Cincinnati entries. See PLCH catalog and Worldcat for availability.
page modified: August 2024
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