South Carolina Genealogy

The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg, SC had a great story this past month of an exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum. The exhibit is called “Finding Priscilla’s Children” and focuses on the life of a slave child named Priscilla that was taken from Sierra Leone and at the age of 10 years old in 1756, sold at auction to Elias Ball, a South Carolina rice planter.

She died at 65 and was survived by 10 children….

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Sometimes it’s easy to become spoiled. In researching my (white) ancestors, it is easily forgotten how much more challenging genealogy research might be if my ancestors were from Africa and not Europe. Of course, race divided our country very early on and in some ways it’s as clear in visiting Charleston’s old Slave Market as anywhere in the country. That much said, African American ancestry research can be very rewarding. Here’s a great example…

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Yes, why am I posting these here? Well, you see over the last few weeks I’ve been working quite a bit to promote the site and get the word out about some of the good things going on here at the South Carolina Genealogy site and I wanted to go ahead and archive some of the press releases here. I’ve got one more to go, but that may not come for a day or two. Regular schedule of postings will pick up tomorrow.

SouthCarolinaGenealogy.org today announced the completion of County detail pages providing a thumbnail sketch of information on each county as well as useful links for genealogists. There are pages for each county in the state and the amount of information available varies by county.

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SouthCarolinaGenealogy.org today announces a request for users to submit articles for inclusion in the South Carolina Genealogy site as well as articles for inclusion in the article section of the South Carolina Genealogy Directory.

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SouthCarolinaGenealogy.org today announced the full launch of their new forum. The newly launched service gives genealogists interested in South Carolina research more choices in posting queries in researching their ancestors. The full launch signifies that there are now forums for both statewide genealogy queries and county family history query posting. There is now a forum for each and every county in the state of South Carolina.
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In the wee hours this morning the first edition of the Free South Carolina Genealogy Newsletter went out. Of course, you can still sign up to catch the next “issue”. I expect there will be around 1 a month. In the next few days I’ll be posting a few recent press releases here (including one on the Newsletter launch.) Also, I think I’ll be adding an area to post an archive of the newsletters, but I do want newsletter subscribers to have first crack at things there. Thank you very much everyone that’s already subscribed.

Family History, Genealogy, Ancestry… all of these terms usually bring to mind older retirees studiously working their way through library books. At least that’s the way it seemed back when I started around 1990. I was (at 18) the youngest person in the local Genealogy Society, usually the youngest in the libraries genealogy and history area. I think things have changed somewhat since then though that many younger people are getting into the hobby in the last 15 years or so. But, maybe a part of it is that we just don’t have the time to devote until we’re a little older and feel a need to have something else to pass on to our children and grandchildren. But how do you start out if you have absolute NO information but your name?

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When I launched the new forums for queries here at South Carolina Genealogy.org I asked myself why should there be another South Carolina Genealogy Query forum. Aren’t there enough? Then I remembered the MANY forums I’ve posted on over the years about this family and that family. I also remember the many mailing lists and paper query posts I’ve read through and answered. That’s when it hit me…

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