South Carolina

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South Carolina

South Carolina has a lot of online archive material to offer, and a lot of places offering it. Spend some time and look around at several intriguing sites.

  • The South Carolina Department of Archives & History is the official state repository with numerous links to online content. The list of Digital Collections is a good starting place, with details of the few collections fully available online, including: Confederate Pension Applications, 1919-1938
  • Insurance file photographs of public schools, 1935-1952
  • Grand Jury Presentments to the General Assembly, 1783-1877
  • Colonial Plats
  • National Register of Historic Places
  • Will Transcripts, 1782-1855
  • Militia Enrollments of 1869
  • Other digital resources at the Archives include: Governors' Portraits
  • Central Corrections Institution
  • Currency
  • Great seal of the Lords Proprietors
  • Miscellaneous Plats
  • South Carolina Highway Patrol
  • Town and Township plans

There's also a smallish but lovely group of Collection Curiosities, digital images of odds and ends from the Archive holdings.

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For you family history/genealogy types, check out the Online Records Index. This is a terrific name-searching tool that will point you towards offline records for wills, births, land sales, slave holdings, and a whole lot more. Covers the 1600's to the 1970's. A particularly nice touch...the search box automatically list all names that match the first few letters you type. You can find details of the types of records at the Guide to Collections and can search SCArchCat, the full archives catalog, as well.

The archives also maintain a sort of mini-Wayback Machine for state government websites no longer in existence. A few other online resources are:

  • Historic Contexts/Survey Reports
  • Historical Markers Database
  • National Register Records
  • Research Guide
  • Survey Finding Aid Index

There's also something called ArchSite, which appears to be a mapping application for historical properties in the state, but truth is, the system is rather poorly described. You have to register in order to use the service here.

Another good resource is the South Carolina Digital Library, a portal of content from schools, libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions throughout the state. This seems to be an active site that frequently adds several types of new content:

  • Audio
  • Books
  • Images
  • Manuscripts
  • Maps
  • Newspapers
  • Objects
  • Pamphlets
  • Sheet Music

Then there's SCIWAY, which sure looks like it's about SCIence, but is actually the SC Information Highway site, and lists a whole lot of Carolina archive activity for both online and offline resources:

SC City and County Archives

SC State Archives

SC Federal Archives

SC College and University Archives

SC Archive Organizations

That should keep you busy for a while!

More historical archives and research materials can be found at these excellent resources:

Historical Newspaper Archives