South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH)

The South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH) collects non-current public records, those created, used, or retained by any agency, political subdivision, or governmental body of the state supported by or expending public funds. This includes records from the legislature, judicial system, office of the governor, state agencies, county and municipal governments, school districts, and special purpose districts.

The holdings are arranged into seven broad collections:

British Records
Records of the Confederate States of America
Federal Records, Local Records (county and municipal government records)
Government Records of Other States and Nations
Private Records, and State Records

Within these collections, records are arranged in record series under the archival principle of provenance, or office of origin (i.e., by the agency or government body or entity that created and used the record).

Information about records in SCDAH collection may be accessed through:

SCArchCat, the online catalog to SCDAH holdings with summary level information on all series, full descriptions of over half of the series, and lists of containers and folders for many of the series. The catalog allows searching by keyword, subjects, and titles at each level (series, record group, container/folder, or item) or all levels combined
The web version of The South Carolina Archives Summary Guide to Holdings, a listing of summary information on every record series in the department's archival holdings
The On-line Records Index, an item-level index to selected colonial, state, and county record series

SCDAH has also developed the online guide Genealogy Resources at the Archives, a selected checklist of the more useful records indexes, guides, and publications for genealogical research at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Also see the very helpful guide Directory of South Carolina Historical Records Repositories to identify county level archives in South Carolina.