African American Genealogy: Searching Online Records in SC? Don't Forget These Valuable Resources!
FamilySearch South Carolina Collections (current to Feb 2013):
FamilySearch Collections: Title |
Records |
Last Updated |
| South Carolina, Births and Christenings, 1846-1935 |
14,805 |
9 Mar 2012 |
| South Carolina, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865 |
1,195,302 |
21 Apr 2012 |
| South Carolina, Deaths, 1915-1943 |
636,445 |
31 Dec 2011 |
| South Carolina, Deaths, 1944-1955 |
231,138 |
27 Mar 2010 |
| South Carolina, Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977 |
Browse Images |
9 May 2011 |
| South Carolina, Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964 |
Browse Images |
14 Oct 2012 |
| South Carolina, Marriages, 1709-1913 |
4,154 |
9 Mar 2012 |
Right here of course! We are a free website dedicated to African American genealogy and history in SC, GA and FL
Entire Freedmen’s Bureau microfilms for Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton and Georgetown, each film has more than 1,000 pages of original historical documents.
South Carolina Estate Inventories and Bills of Sale, 1732-1872 contain thousands of images of estate inventories which list assets of property owners in Charleston, South Carolina. The records include the names of hundreds of plantations and thousands of enslaved ancestors. The collection also includes estate inventories for free African American ancestors. The bills of sale in this collection represent every surviving bill of sale for Charleston District from 1732 to 1872 and contain the names of thousands of enslaved and free ancestors.
The SCDAH On-line Records Index is an item-level index to selected colonial, state, and county record series held at the archives.
The Lowcountry Digital Library contains a variety of materials from public and private archives, libraries, archives, and museums. Here you will find a wide variety of media – manuscripts (including many plantation records), books, pamphlets, images and sound recordings. A treasure trove awaits your exploration.
A rich collection of documents shared by E.E. Vaughn, one notable collection is abstracts of SC death index.
The Digital Library on American Slavery offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. There are many Lowcountry records here.
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes fifteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Includes extensive cemetery transcriptions for the Lowcountry Southeast.
Graves and Cemeteries removed from the Santee Cooper project Area affected by the flooding of the lakes areas. A total of more than 7,000 graves were determined to be in the Project Area. Of this number more than 6,000 were removed from the affected area and relocated in areas above the high water marks of Lake Marion and Moultrie; principally Lake Moultrie.
Essential starting point for identifying slaveholders by state
Resources for plantations and the slave trade, historical documents and a database (wiki format)
From SCIWAY, South Carolina’s Information Highway, data on known SC plantations ~ location, owners, number of slaves
Johnie Rivers, the original creator of South Carolina Plantations, carries on her work to document plantations in SC
Rediscovering the names and lives of slaves, freedpersons and their descendants. Although the site is national in focus, there are many SC records there, among them Freedmen’s labor contracts for Berkeley and Georgetown districts.
Directories of searchable databases, extensive transcriptions relevant to the Lowcountry, new historical documents coming online here daily.
Transcriptions of Freedmen's Bureau records for several states, from Christine's Genealogy Website. Extensive transcriptions for Lowcountry FL, GA and SC. A must for your Lowcountry research toolkit.
Two books you can read on-line containing about 2,000 pages of family histories based on all colonial court order and minute books on microfilm at the state archives of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware (over 1000 volumes), 1790-1810 census records, tax lists, wills, deeds, free Negro registers, marriage bonds, parish registers, Revolutionary War pension files, etc.
Research Guides ~ SC African American Ancestors
Video tutorial and PowerPoint presentation from Robin Foster to help you locate new records to search for SC ancestors.
From FamilySearch, a comprehensive research guide for researching SC ancestors.
Online County-Level SC Records ~ Directories and Search Engines
From DiscoverSouthCarolina.com, a county by county list of libraries, archives, museums and family history centers.
SCIWAY is your essential starting point for state and county-level links for South Carolina. The definitive list of South Carolina genealogy links.
Astoundingly exhaustive county and state-level links
The definitive collection of Internet genealogy links
The Records Project is an online community dedicated to building the largest, free public records encyclopedia.
Search over 1.2 billion historic records across hundreds of genealogy websites. Fast, convenient and free.
Mocavo is the world's first and largest genealogy search engine. Their search index indexes over four billion names and is the fastest search in the industry by more than ten times. You must register for a free account to view search results.
Beaufort County ~ Online Resources
The Heritage Library is a private reference library and research center which is open to the public at a modest daily fee of ten dollars. The Library houses the records of The Hilton Head Island Historical Society containing a wealth of historical information, old photographs, and maps of Hilton Head Island and the Low Country.
The library is an affiliated library of the Family History Library operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here you can view microfilm and microfiche maintained by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
Beaufort County Library ~ Beaufort District Collection
The Beaufort District Collection was created in 1992 to record the rich historical, cultural, and environmental heritage of the former Beaufort District. The BDC Research Room houses the research collection which researchers can visit. The reading room will accommodate 7 visitors, group visits must be scheduled in advance. The BDC has two online collections of interest to family historians:
This collection of 548 photographs comes from two albums of family photographs created by Conrad Munro Donner (1844 - 1916). Within the collection are photographs of many African Americans in Beaufort County in the early 1900s.
The Newspaper Obituary Index does
not include the actual texts of the obituary notices. The actual texts of the obituary notices are on file in the Beaufort District Collection and may be ordered. Some obituaries are available on microfilm at other local libraries.
On March 2, 1807, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States beginning January 1, 1808. This Act required that all vessels of 40 tons or more carrying slaves in the coastwise trade file duplicate manifests at the ports of origin and destination, pledging that the slave had not been imported into the U.S. after 1807.
Beaufort, S.C. Slave Manifests (Outbound)
By Slave Owner's Name
By Slave's Name
Charleston County ~ Online Resources
Extensive collection of online records for Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties ~ marriages, baptisms, court records, maps, cemetery records and more
Lowcountry Africana Full-Text Reading Room:
Here you can search for abstracts of:
Document images can be printed from microfilm at the Marriage License Division:
Marriage License Division
Judicial Center
100 Broad Street, Suite 469
Charleston, SC 29401
(843) 958-5183
(843) 958-5191 (Fax)
Document images can be printed from microfilm at the Charleston Probate Court:
Estate Division
Historic Courthouse
84 Broad Street, Third Floor
Charleston, SC 29401
(843) 958-5030
(843) 958-5044 (Fax)
Charleston County Public Library ~ The South Carolina Room and The Charleston Archive
- Online research guides to help you identify which records to search when you visit the South Carolina Room. Save research time onsite by reading the research guides before you visit!
- Once you have read the research guides and identified records of interest, go here to see if the staff of the SC Room have prepared an online finding aid for collections you want to view when you visit.
The staff of the Charleston Archive has created several pathfinders to assist the public in understanding and accessing the materials within the collection. Click on the titles to view the pathfinders in PDF format (Adobe Reader is required for viewing).
The staff of the Charleston Archive has created finding aids for many of its collections. These finding aids include physical descriptions, historical notes, and collection outlines. To view the entire finding aid, click on the title of the chosen collection. All finding aids are in PDF format, so Adobe Reader is required.
- )(finding aid to full collection is available)
(A compiled alphabetical index of the 1877 precinct ledgers, which contains 7,189 names, is available
here:)
Charleston County Public Library ~ Charleston Archive ~ Records of the Commissioners of the House of Correction, 1868–1885
This collection contains a single register of the inmates of the House of Corrections, a Post-Civil War institution for the confinement of vagrants and violators of city ordinances. The register provides information on all inmates of the institution (men, women, and children) including: date of admission, name, age, birthplace, last residence, length of time in Charleston, occupation, discharge date, and remarks. The volume lacks entries for the years 1876-1880.
A transcription of these records is now available in a searchable PDF format (in three parts):
On March 2, 1807, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States beginning January 1, 1808. This Act required that all vessels of 40 tons or more carrying slaves in the coastwise trade file duplicate manifests at the ports of origin and destination, pledging that the slave had not been imported into the U.S. after 1807.
Charleston, S.C. Slave Manifests (Inbound)
By Slave Owner's Name
By Slave's Name
Georgetown County ~ Online Resources
Provides free access to an extensive collection of digitized plantation journals, rare photographs, historical newspapers, real estate indentures, personal journals and letters.
Records of the Lower Pee Dee River area of Georgetown County. Extensive collection of wills, Bible records, cemetery and tax records and more.
What Are YOUR Favorite SC Resources?
Which SC resources do YOU recommend? Please leave a comment to add your favorites!
