Welcome to Fort Wayne and Allen County, Indiana!
ACGSI the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana has over 10,000 searchable pages on our two web sites. Use the search box above right to search both sites to see what we have to offer or click around our site using the drop down menus at the top of each page.
Allen County INGenWeb is hosted by the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana. We continually add new resources to help research your family history online. ACGSI works in close cooperation with the Allen County Public Library and their vast Genealogy Center resources. ACGSI recently add a searchable index to One-Room School Houses. The local Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter of the DAR - Daughters of the American Revolution has a growing web site with genealogical resources. If you find our information useful to your research please consider contributing information or helping with tax deductible donations to ACGSI or the Allen County Public Library.
The Fort Wayne/Allen County Convention and Visitors Bureau is promoting the Genealogy Center as "Where to Go to Find Out Where You're From!" taking advantage of the NBC televsion series "Who Do You Think You Are?" which was renewed for a second season. Indiana's NewsCenter has a short video on this promotion Find Your Family Roots In Downtown Fort Wayne.
A Beginner's Genealogy Workshop is scheduled for October 2, 2010. Click registration form for more information.
The 3rd annual Military Symposium will be held in Fort Wayne October 8-9, sponsored by the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana. Sessions will be held at the Allen County Public Library in Meeting Rooms A-B.
With the approaching sesquicentennial of the Civil War, all six classes will be devoted to aiding family historians in research of their Civil War ancestors. Genealogy Center Director Curt Witcher opens the program with an overview of “Using Military Records for Genealogical Research.” The remaining five sessions will be presented by Amy Johnson Crow, a popular genealogy speaker, researcher, and author. Her topics include “The Last Full Measure: Military Burials”, “Researching Your Civil War Ancestors Online”, “State and Local Records for Civil War Research”, “After Mustering Out: Researching Civil War Veterans” , and “For Benefit of the Soldier: Civil War Fraternal Organizations.”
A class schedule and registration form are available here. For additional information call 260-421-1225.
Allen County has a population of around 350,000, the county seat is Fort Wayne, established in 1794 as a fort named for Army General "Mad" Anthony Wayne a veteran of the Revolutionary War who died in 1796. There were several Forts of Fort Wayne. The most famous is Whistler's 1816 fort. Everyone has heard of Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler, from the famous 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black. Few know John Abbott McNeill Whistler's grandfather Major John Whistler helped build the 1816 Fort Wayne on what was then the western frontier and where John's father George Whistler was born May 19, 1800 in Fort Wayne. There is a book about Whistler's Father. A little known actor named Marion Robert Morrison was originally given the stage name Anthony Wayne, but Fox Studios change it to John Wayne who became a leading man in 142 of his 153 movies a Hollywood record. Comic book and movie character Batman, alter ego Bruce Wayne, is depicted as a direct descent to General Anthony Wayne.
The state of Indiana was admitted by President James Madison as the 19th state of the union December 11, 1816. Allen County is located in northeast Indiana and is the largest of 92 counties. The Wabash & Erie Canal was completed in Fort Wayne to Huntington County July 3, 1835 and was replaced a couple of decades later by the railroads. The Allen County Links page contains a growing list of area attractions in addition to local genealogy related sites.
John Chapman aka. Johnny Appleseed is buried and celebrated each September at Johnny Appleseed Park on the north east side of Fort Wayne. Several members of the infamous bank robber John Dillinger, the FBI's Public Enemy #1, gang are buried in Fort Wayne cemeteries.
My name is Stan Follis, the Allen County Coordinator since April 2009 representing The Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana. We have a Query page where you can leave your queries. We also have lookup volunteers like Linda Churchward on the Lookup Volunteers page you can contact for help. If you would like to add your name to the list of lookup volunteers, have any contributions or suggestions for this web site, please e-mail me.
I post upcoming Events and general genealogy items on our Facebook page, so consider Liking our Facebook page.
Suggestions for Researching on Allen County, INGenWeb
- Use the Search Box at the top right side of each page to search over 10,000 pages on our Allen INGenWeb and ACGSI web sites
- Search and Post a Query on our Query Page which may take a while until someone reads your page and knows your answer - keep your email address up to date so they can contact you! These are searchable like other pages!
- Search and Post a question on the Rootsweb Message Board which like a Query will take some time before someone reads and answers your question - advantage is Rootsweb allows one easy method to update your email on all queries! Disadvantage is searches will not appear on our site Allen INGenWeb/ACGSI searches, but will appear in Google-Bing-Yahoo internet searches.
- Request assistance from one of our Lookup Volunteers with a specific question not found on our sites
- We now have an ACGSI Facebook page so if you are one of the 400 million Facebook users perhaps one of our "Fans" will know the answer to your question. I post many general genealogy links and helpful tips in addition to Allen County, Indiana information.
- If you wonder why more information online isn't free, then read this article by Dick Eastman in his newsletter Why It Isn't Free!
To find out more about the Indiana INGenWeb Project or if you would like to host a county, please contact Debby Beheler, the Indiana State INGenWeb Coordinator, or Sharon Craig or Katy Hestand the Assistant State Coordinators.
You can visit our neighboring INGenWeb counties: Adams County, DeKalb County, Huntington County, Noble County, Wells County and Whitley County. Our OHGenWeb county neighbors are: Defiance County, Paulding County and Van Wert County. You can also visit any Indiana GenWeb county or click the maps to either side.
You can share our Allen INGenWeb page on your Facebook "Wall" by clicking Share ACGSI on Facebook