I can mark another pandemic project off my list. I have completely revamped and updated my Famous Findlayian page. I went through each entry and revised the text if needed – like if someone died since being listed – and added some new people from previous suggestions. The page is now inside my WordPress install so no more hand coding the page…. YAY!!!
I’m not really sure when I started this list. I know it was before 2010. The WayBack Machine has a page capture from February 2005! Wow! In fact I think that was when I still had a website on Geocities.
Why did I start it?
I’ve always been into history and I love learning about the history of my hometown. Then I knew of a few famous people had been from Findlay like Ben Rothlisberger, Tell Taylor, and Gavin Creel. Then one day I was searching through the Internet Movie Database and put in Findlay as a search term and one of the names that popped up was Mark Metcalf, the actor who played Doug Neidermeyer in the classic comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House. Of course I was a bit disappointed to learn he had only been born in Findlay and didn’t grow up there.
I started doing more internet searches like in Wikipedia and search engines like Google.
The initial criteria to be included was you had to be born or live in Findlay or Hancock county. I also insisted that the claim had to be verified by an online method.
I wanted to include a photo of the person so if I couldn’t find one to use online, I still included the person but put their listing further down the page after the ones with photos.
The first version had 16 people. With the update today, the page now includes 57 total individuals (54 with photos), 6 Medal of Honor Winners, and 5 additional people who served in Congress over the years. The listing includes two sets of siblings and while there is a heavy number of sports people, many vocations are represented.
I got many suggestions over the years and many of those were added in this update and I have several people needing more information to verify. For example, someone suggested a current TV actor but I couldn’t actually verify that they were born or lived in Hancock county. The person’s family did but I couldn’t find any information where they or some media report said they were born or lived in the area. For another person I did add, I found a transcript of a podcast they were a guest on where they talked about living in the “small town” of Findlay. If you have a suggestion or a corrections, feel free to send it my way.
Further updates will include adding more people, including more women and people of color. I also want to create a database of all the info I have so it can help in what info I still need and I can do a print out of the list should there me a point where I lose my website.
So, check out my updated Famous Findlayian page:
