South Carolina, United States Genealogy

United States   South Carolina

South Carolina Counties
Extinct Counties and Districts:  Abbeville District· Anderson District· Beaufort District· Berkeley· Berkeley District· Camden District· Charleston District· Cheraw District· Chester District· Chesterfield District· Claremont· Clarendon District· Colleton District· Craven· Darlington District· Edgefield District· Georgetown District· Granville · Lewisburg· Liberty· Ninety-Six District· Orange· Orangeburgh District· Pendleton· Pendleton District· Pinckney District· Salem· Washington· Washington District· Winton· Winyaw

Click on a county on this map to go to that county page.

Major Repositories
South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History· South Carolina Historical Society· South Caroliniana Library· Charleston Library Society· National Archives Southeast Region (Atlanta)· Dallas Public Central Library

Migration Routes
Camden-Charleston Path· Catawba Trail· Charleston-Savannah Road· Fall Line Road· Fort Charlotte and Cherokee Old Path· Fort Moore-Charleston Road· Great Valley Road· King's Highway· Lower Cherokee Traders Path· Unicoi Trail· Upper Road· Ports:  Charleston· Georgetown

Background
About 80 percent of the settlers of colonial South Carolina were of English origin. Many of them came by way of Barbados and other colonies rather than directly from England. A group of Dutch settlers from New York came to South Carolina in 1671. Another smaller group was of French origin, mostly descendants of Huguenots, who came to the area beginning in 1680. More numerous were the Scottish dissenters, who were brought in beginning in 1682, and the Germans, who arrived during the eighteenth century. Blacks constituted a majority of the population from early colonial times until 1930. Indian wars drove most of the native Americans from the state, but there are still a few Catawba Indians in York County.

Research Tools

 * Restore the Ancestors Indexing Project: SC Estate Inventories Help index all surviving Charleston, SC Estate Inventories, 1732-1872 and Bills of Sale, 1773-1872, for a FREE Footnote.com collection containing the name of every slave ever listed in a surviving inventory.
 * Charleston County Public Library's South Carolina Room describes history and genealogy finding aids at the library.
 * The South Carolina Archives has an online Information about Records at the SC Archives page, a database search engine for Plats of State Land Grants 1784-1868; Will Transcripts 1782-1855; Confederate Pension Applications 1919-1926, and the Summary Guide to Local Records listing their county and municipality records
 * The South Carolina Health Department has provided an online index of South Carolina deaths from the years 1915-1957. The index is divided into four sections: 1915-1924, 1925-1934, 1935-1944 and 1945-1949 and 1950-1958.
 * South Carolina GenWeb county-by-county formation histories, cemetery listings, census transcript/indexes, county histories, and repositories.
 * South Carolina Genealogy Trails newspapers, queries, census, military, biography, cemetery abstracts mostly submitted one at a time.
 * South Carolina Pioneers blog of name lists in wills, genealogies, estates, bible records, and gedcom files; enticing you to buy transcript books.
 * Record Search has provided a name index and images of South Carolina Deaths 1915-1943.
 * Record Search has provided a name index of South Carolina Deaths 1944-1955.

Things you can do
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