South Carolina Genealogy

On June 14, 2008 the Oconee Heritage Center will be staging the Newry Folk Festival in Newry, SC. (West of Greenville, SC near Lake Keowee.) There will be crafts and music throughout the day as well as a fiddle, banjo and guitar competition at the old mill store. The date of the festival marks the 114th anniversary of the first time one of the wheels was turned by water at this water powered mill. Newry sprung up as a textile town around the first mill there which was founded by William Ashmead Courtenay in 1893. Courtenay had located his mill along the Little River and named the location Newry after the Irish place that his ancestors had come from.

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Most people still think of cameras just in the context of taking pictures of people to label and document the family history. But with the flexibility of digital cameras (and the ability to cram hundreds if not thousands of shots on a digital memory card), it’s a shame that many people overlook digital cameras (and camcorders) as a great means for documenting other interesting things about the family history. One example is this…

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The Old Darlington District Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society keeps the Hartsville Genealogical Research Library in Hartsville, SC near Darlington, SC. One of the things that makes it an interesting/unusual location for a Genealogy library is that it’s housed in a 1907 train depot. Their site has information on their hours and coming events (genealogical society meetings.) They also have details on some of the materials that they have published.

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This week, I’m highlighting my Abbeville County, SC Genealogy Resource page. Abbeville County was created in 1785 from the old Ninety-Six district and has been known as the birthplace and deathbed of the Confederacy. John C. Calhoun was a native of Abbeville County, South Carolina. The name Abbeville comes from a place name in France. Many of the early settlers of Abbeville County were French Huguenots. Erskine College is located in Abbeville County.

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