Spartanburg County, South Carolina Genealogy

United States  South Carolina  Spartanburg County

Quick Dates
Spartanburg County's civil records start the following years:

County Courthouse
Spartanburg County Courthouse 180 Magnolia St. Spartanburg, South Carolina 29306

Clerk of Court 180 Magnolia St., 2nd floor. Suite 500 Spartanburg, SC 29306 864-596-2591 Court and land records

Probate Court 180 Magnolia St., 1st Floor, Suite 302 Spartanburg, SC 29306 Phone: 864-596-2556 Probate and marriage records

Hours: 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.

History
The county is named after the Spartan Regiment. Known in history as the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Cowpens.

Parent County
1795--Spartanburg County was created in 1795 from District 96. County seat: Spartanburg

Boundary Changes
"Rotating Formation South Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1682-1987) may be viewed for free at the My South Carolina Genealogy website. The maps rely on AniMap 3.0 software.

Variant Spellings

 * Spartanburgh

Record Loss

 * Lost census: 1890

Neighboring Counties
Cherokee | Greenville | Laurens | Polk County, North Carolina | Rutherford County, North Carolina | Union

Research Guides

 * South Carolina Archives Summary Guide: Spartanburg County, available online, courtesy: South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

African American

 * Eelman, Bruce W. "'An Educated and Intelligent People Cannot Be Enslaved': The Struggle for Common Schools in Antebellum Spartanburg, South Carolina," History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 250-270. Digital version at JSTOR ($).
 * Heinegg, Paul. "'Other Free' Heads of Household in the 1790 South Carolina Census, by County," Free African Americans.com. [Includes free blacks in Spartanburgh County.]

Biography

 * Boggs, John. The Southern Christian; Exemplified in the Memoirs of Anthony Jefferson Pearson, Who Died August 31st, 1834 in Spartanburgh, South Carolina. New York: Ezra Collier, 1835. Digital version at Internet Archive.

Census
1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 federal population schedules of Spartanburg County are available online. For tips on accessing census records online, see South Carolina Census. If you're having trouble finding your ancestors in online indexes, try checking printed indexes. Created by local experts familiar with the area's families, these indexes are often transcribed more accurately than online nationwide indexes.

See South Carolina Population Schedule Indexes: Fiche, Film, or Book for more information about statewide printed indexes.

See Spartanburg County, SC census assignments, including links to transcribed files [The USGenWeb Census Project®]

1820 Manufactures
The original manufactures schedules for South Carolina are kept at the NARA, Washington, D.C. FHL copies: 1024517 - 1024518.

Published abstract:


 * National Archives. Indexes to Manufactures Census of 1820. 1920; reprint, Knightstown, Ind.: Bookmark, 1977. 973 X2m 1820; digital version at Lineages. [Includes this county.]

1840 Revolutionary War Pensioners

 * A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services: With their Names, Ages, and Places of Residence, as Returned by the Marshalls of the Several Judicial Districts, Under the Act for Taking the Sixth Census. Washington, D.C.: Blair and Rives, 1841. 973 X2pc 1840;  2321; digital versions at Google Books. [See South Carolina, Spartanburgh [Spartanburg] District on page 143.]

1850

 * Gilbert, Horace Elbert and Rodney Dusterhoft. An Enhanced 1850 Census, Spartanburg District, South Carolina. Spartanburg, S.C.: Pinckney District Chapter, SCGS, 1994. 975.729 X2g 1850

1860

 * Emory, Mary Mills and Lorene Burton Ambrose. 1860 Census, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Vol. 1. 975.729 X2p 1860 v. 1

Church
LDS Ward and Branch Records


 * Spartanburg

Court

 * Racine, Philip N. "The Spartanburg District Magistrates and Freeholders Court, 1824-1865," The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 197-212. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

DNA
DNA has been collected from men claiming descent from the following Charleston County residents. FamilySearch has not independently verified the lineages of those tested.

Genealogy
More than 20 genealogies have been published about Spartanburg County families. To view a list, visit Spartanburg County, South Carolina Genealogy.

Immigration

 * Howe, George. The Scotch-Irish and Their First Settlements on the Tyger River and Other Neighboring Precincts in South Carolina a Centennial Discourse, Delivered at Nazareth Church, Spartanburg District, S.C., September 14, 1861. 1861; reprint, Greenville, S.C.: A Press, 1981.

Land
Plats For State Land Grants 1784-1868

This series consists of recorded copies of plats for state land grants for the Charleston and the Columbia Series with their certificates of admeasurement or certification. All personal names and geographic features on these plats are included in the repository's On-line Index to Plats for State Land Grants

The South Carolina Constitution of 1790 required the surveyor general to maintain offices in both the new capital at Columbia and in Charleston. The surveyor general began to use separate volumes for recording plats in his Columbia office in 1796. Before that, all plats were recorded in the set of volumes begun in Charleston in 1784. After 1796, most plats for land grants in the Upper Division of the state were recorded and filed in Columbia. The surveyor general chose to make the Columbia volumes a continuation of the state plat volumes begun in Charleston and gave the initial Columbia volume the number thirty-six to correspond with the number of the volume that had then been reached in the Charleston series. As a result, there are volumes numbered thirty-six through forty-three from each office, but the records in them are not duplicative.

Also included are the Plan Books containing Plats and Plans.

Local Histories

 * History of Spartanburg County. Spartanburg, S.C.?: Band &amp; White, 1940. Digital version at Ancestry($).
 * Landrum, J.B.O. Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina, Embracing for the Most Part the Primitive and Colonial History of the Territory Comprising the Original County of Spartanburg with a General Review of the Entire Military Operations in the Upper Portion of South Carolina and Portions of North Carolina. Greenville, S.C.: Shannon &amp; Co., Printers and Binders, 1897. Digital version at Google Books.
 * Landrum, J.B.O. History of Spartanburg County: Embracing an Account of Many Important Events and Biographical Sketches of Statesmen, Divines and Other Public Men, and the Names of Many Others Worthy of Record in the History of Their County. Atlanta, Ga.: Franklin Printing, 1900. ; ; digital versions at Internet Archive; World Vital Records($); another World Vital Records($) version.
 * Spartanburg City and Spartanburg County, South Carolina, 1903. 1903. Digital version at Internet Archive.
 * Waldrep, G.C. Southern Workers and the Search for Community: Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.


 * Reviews:


 * 1) By John Hennen in The American Historical Review, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Oct. 2001):1397-1398. Digital version at JSTOR ($).
 * 2) By Annette C. Wright in The Journal of American History, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Mar. 2002):1580-1581. Digital version at JSTOR ($).
 * 3) By R. Phillip Stone II in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Aug. 2002):738-379. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Military
Over the years, many veterans have lived in Spartanburg County. The area receives a lot of attention, as being the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Cowpens. Spartanburg County, South Carolina Military identifies various military records and histories.

Newspapers
Spartanburg Herald Spartanburg Journal Obituary Search Engine

Obituaries
Spartanbury County Public Libraryhas Indexes to various newspaper obituaries as well as a miscellaneous death index. The obituaries and index covers various years ranging from 1844 to 2009.

Probate
The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has microfilms or typescripts of wills, inventories, bills of sale, power of attorneys, bonds, notes, administrations, judgments, and sales records. They have placed Will Transcriptionsfor 1782 to 1855 online. Index searchable by name and the image is available.

The organization Strictly By Name provides free online indexes to early Spartanburg County wills. They offer a record retrieval service to photocopy and transcribe microfilm copies of the original documents for a small fee. Available indexes:


 * Spartanburg Wills Book A-D 1810-1858

Schools

 * First Annual Catalogue of the Instructors and Pupils in the Limestone Springs Female High School, Spartanburg, S.C., August, 1846. New York: Leavitt, Trow &amp; Company, 1846. Digital version at Internet Archive.
 * Catalogue of the Instructors and Pupils in the Limestone Springs Female High School, Spartanburg, S.C., 1855. Charleston, S.C.: James and Williams, 1855. Digital version at Internet Archive.
 * Catalogue of the Instructors and Pupils in the Limestone Springs Female High School, Spartanburg, S.C., 1856. Columbia, S.C.: Steam Power-Press of R.W. Gibbes, 1856. Digital version at Internet Archive.
 * Catalogue of the Instructors and Pupils in the Limestone Springs Female High School, Spartanburg, S.C., 1857. Columbia, S.C.: Steam-Power Press of R.W. Gibbes, 1857. Digital version at Internet Archive.

Death

 * [1895-1897, 1903-1914] South Carolina Death Records, 1821-1955, available online, courtesy: Ancestry.com ($). [Includes Spartanburg City death records, 1895-1897, 1903-1914.]

Web Sites

 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
 * Family History Library Catalog
 * Spartanburg County, South Carolina Genealogy and Family History(Linkpendium)