Sunday, November 28, 2010

Some of My Favorite South Carolina Resources

As I went through all of my bookmarked links for South Carolina so that I can update and supplement the links on my blog, I copied them into a Word document. It occurred to me when I looked at all the links that I might as well post some of these.

Since a lot of my current research is focused on Anderson and Greenville Counties, those account for a lot of the links I’m going to post, as does a predecessor entity, Pendleton.

And, of course, it should be mentioned, the best resources of all are found by actually visiting the areas in person. However, you can still get a lot of preparatory research done through these websites.


The South Carolina Department of Archives and History

This is the place to start for SC research online. There are a number of documents held at SCDAH that appear on searchable (by name and location) indices or even have scanned images you can bring up on the website.


My South Carolina Genealogy

One of the most extensive listing of South Carolina links.


SC Historical County Lines

This website contains links to various historical maps, including county formation maps (such as SC’s map at FamilyHistory101) and maps of battles.


David Rumsay Map Collection – Pendleton District, South Carolina


South Carolina GenWeb

Lists of useful links in four major categories: SC County Sites, Statewide Records, Reference and Research Helps, and Essays and Special Research Topics.


Ancestors: Resource Guide – South Carolina

Part of BYU’s state-by-state listing of resources.


Rootsweb’s list of South Carolina-related mailing lists 


Upstate Ancestry

Provides some research links for the Upstate area.


South Carolina Genealogy: The Andrea Files

Leonardo Andrea was a professional genealogist who researched a number of SC families. This site does not contain links to the actual research files, but instead describes and classifies how his research was carried out. There are useful indices to family files and folders so that you can find out whether your family might have been among the families he researched.


ABP Abstracts

Dr. Bruce Pruitt has written up abstracts of land documents from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. I find these very useful in my research. This site has links to lists of these abstract books by state that contain purchasing information.


South Carolina in the Civil War

An excellent list of links.


War Between the States in South Carolina


Anderson County

Anderson County SC GenWeb

Like the Greenville GenWeb site, this is an active GenWeb site and is very helpful.


Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society

Includes a clickable index to archived newsletters.


Anderson County, SC Book-of-the-Dead Tombstone Inscriptions

A digital version of Ross M. Smith’s project for transcribing all the known tombstones in Anderson County. Tombstones are cross-indexed by name and cemetery – extremely useful!


Anderson County Library’s South Carolina Room


Greenville County

Greenville County Library System

A fabulous resource, both online and onsite. One page that I find particularly useful:

Obituary index


Greenville County Historical Records

Posted on the Greenville County government website courtesy of the Greenville County Library, this is a definite “must” site for all Greenville researchers. Many of the microfilmed records of the county – estate records, indices of land records, etc. – are posted here. Not every microfilmed record is here, but there are enough to seriously cut down the amount of onsite research time you will need to spend (not that I consider research time in Greenville a hardship) and the indices, in combination with the Greenville Library’s online finding aids, are indispensable in planning out a research trip.


Greenville County South Carolina GenWeb

This is one of my favorite GenWeb sites. It is definitely worthwhile to check out each one of the links in the green column on the left. For instance, you might think “I have Ancestry (or Heritage Quest), so I don’t need to check out the census links.” But the links here have a number of heads of household who have been crossed-indexed from one census to the next on the early censuses, and also have neighboring families listed. An invaluable resource!


Greenville County Chapter of the SC Genealogical Society


Pendleton District

Pendleton District, SC – Part of the American Local History Network


Old Pendleton District Chapter of the SC Genealogical Society


Other Links in the Region


The Piedmont Historical Society, South Carolina


Going through bookmark files and pages is usually a rude awakening and this is no exception. Many of the URLs for pages I had bookmarked under Genealogy > South Carolina are no longer valid. A number of Pendleton District links and all of my Williamston links are gone. I can see that I’ll have to do some googling to rebuild these links.

5 comments:

  1. Your list has me wishing I had just discovered a S.C. ancestor. Also, your BYU site was welcomed, we all can use that. Thanks.

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  2. I've used many of the general SC links in my research. My grandfather was stationed at Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, SC during WWI before he shipped out for the Somme, France. My husband's African-American roots are found in Horry County, in the rice culture along the coastal area of Wampee, Little River and Myrtle Beach, SC.

    You are correct about visiting in person. The first time we tried to visit the Spartanburg Regional History Museum, they were in an older downtown location. We have yet to visit since they've moved into their new home a couple years ago.http://www.spartanburghistory.org/museum.php

    We've been to the Register of Deeds in Horry County before, but we hope to go to the Horry County Museum when we go on vacation in December.
    http://www.horrycountymuseum.org/

    The other thing I love to do when I go on family history destination vactions is look for books written by locals about regional history and families. I really help add perspective to what life must have been like for our ancestors.

    I'll be sharing my vacation results either later next month or in early January on my blog. Hope you'll stop by!

    http://www.ibawcross-culturalgenealogy.blogspot.com

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  3. I just wrote a full follow friday on this valuable posts. Hope you like it. http://a3genealogy.blogspot.com/2010/12/follow-friday-south-carolina-research.html

    Thanks for sharing this information.

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  4. Barbara - Happy to oblige!

    Debra - I'm envious - would love to go back to SC. I can't wait to read about your SC trip.

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  5. Kathleen - Thank you so much; that was so nice of you! I just love SC research and am anxious to establish where in SC some of my other family lines lived so that I'll have an excuse to visit many places there.

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