GREENVILLE — The Darke County Genealogical Society will host Tom O’Grady with his presentation, The Barnbuilders: An Architectural Legacy in Ohio’s Rural Landscape, on Sunday, May 7 at 2 p.m. at Garst Museum.

This program is made possible in part by The Ohio Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

O’Grady sailed as a deck hand on an ore carrier on the Great Lakes abroad a sister-ship of the ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald, surveyed for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, launched the first comprehensive curbside recycling program in the state of Ohio, and has been promoting waste reduction and sustainable economy for thirty years. He has spent a good deal of the past 25 years as a student of Ohio history, researching its geography and settlement, the mound builders, Ohio canals, and several of its interesting characters and their stories. He has been teaching astronomy at Ohio University for 32 years.

His presentation will explain how culture groups migrating from New England, Middle Atlantic states, and from the South, settled in various regions of Ohio, and their distinct farms and barns can be observed when travelling throughout the state. The barnbuilders have an architectural legacy throughout rural Ohio that can help understand much about the heritage of the region. The geographic distribution of the various barn types is due to routes followed into the state, geographical influences, or cultural affinities. One can identify regions settled by people of Pennsylvania German descent, those settled by migrants from the upland south, or those migrating to Ohio from New England, by the type of barns and other building on farmsteads remaining on Ohio byways. These artifacts of timber frame construction, house the remnants of Ohio’s primeval forests.

This presentation is free and open to the public and will be followed by refreshments and the regular meeting of the Darke County Genealogical Society. For more information call 937-692-6511.