The Butler County Genealogy Society will host the webinar “The Erie Canal and the Opening of the Midwest” by Annette Burke Lyttle at 6:15 p.m. Sept. 17 at the Butler Public Library on North McKean Street.

The presentation will be followed by a discussion on the subject.

Many in Western Pennsylvania have ancestors that accessed the area via the canal, which revolutionized 19th Century travel by offering a high-speed route from the eastern U.S. to the Midwest.

The canal also provided an efficient means of exporting agricultural products from the Midwest to markets and ports in the east.

Lyttle owns Heritage Detective, serves as a genealogical speaker, is the coordinator of the Intermediate Foundations and Writing the Stories of Our Ancestors courses at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, and the editor of “The Florida Genealogist.“