South Carolina Biography

Online Resources

 * County and Town Histories, South Carolina with biographies
 * Men of mark in South Carolina; ideals of American life: a collection of biographies of leading men of the state. J. C. Hemphill, editor-in-chief. Illustrated with many full page photo-steel engraved portraits. v. 1,
 * Vol. 2,]
 * Vol. 3
 * County and Town Histories, South Carolina, with biographies
 * Vol. 3

Biographies in Local Histories

 * Biographical information is often found in state, county, and town histories.
 * Towards the end of the 19th century, began publishers soliciting short biographical/family histories from local founding families, offering to publish them in an upcoming local history. This then became an incentive for family members to buy a copy of the book.
 * Families represented were not necessarily prominent. Practically everyone living there, especially in the Midwest, counted as an early settler.
 * These biographies often start with the first member of the family to settle in the area, and detail their descendants at the time of publishing. They may tell where the family moved in from. Children's marriages often are given, with maiden names included.

Finding Biographies

 * The county Wiki page lists several county histories. It also lists local libraries, and societies which probably have copies of local histories.
 * Many histories are no longer under copyright and can be found in the following online, digitized book collections. Search with keywords "History" and "the name of your locality" (state, county, or town).
 * FamilySearch Books
 * Google Books
 * World Cat
 * HathiTrust
 * Internet Archive
 * The FamilySearch library has extensive collections of these local histories. Many are digitized. Search the FamilySearch Catalog under your locality for the topics "Biography" and "History".


 * Richard N. Côté and Patricia H. Williams, The Dictionary of South Carolina Biography, Volume 1 (Easley, South Carolina: The Southern Historical Press, 1985) ; This dictionary is a continuing index to all published biographical sketches. The first volume indexes 13,300 sketches from 52 published sources. Other volumes in the set are currently being prepared for publication.


 * Hemphill, James C. Men of Mark in South Carolina . . . A Collection of Biographies of Leading Men of the State. Four Volumes. (Washington, DC: Men of Mark Publishing Co., 1907-9.)


 * Snowden, Yates, and Harry G. Cutler. History of South Carolina. Five Volumes. (Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Co., 1920.) Volumes 3-5 are biographical.


 * To access biographies for people in South Carolina available through the Family History Library, use the Place-names Search in the FamilySearch Catalog for:


 * SOUTH CAROLINA - BIOGRAPHY
 * SOUTH CAORLINA, [COUNTY] - BIOGRAPHY
 * SOUTH CAROLINA, [COUNTY], [TOWN] - BIOGRAPHY