South Carolina Genealogy

I know there was a bit of a gap in posts there, but I’m back into a bit of a routine with getting posts out on the sites. hopefully I’ll get a good schedule going again. I have had to attend to some other business matters over the summer and that has left little time to even think about the state of these sites. I’m glad to tell you that the newsletter will see a new edition soon. I’m amazed at the kind of response in signups there have been even in my absence! Also, let me remind you of the (growing) forums.

I also have had a number of personal genealogy requests in the last month (my own and my wifes families)…. I’ll be trying to respond to those in the coming months. Things are still busy, but the pace has hopefully slowed enough that I can get back on the posting horse….

I know, buildings can be rebuilt, but there is something undeniably sad about such a beautiful structure being intentionally burned as the Lancaster County Courthouse. I hear there are charges in the case, it is arson. The good news is that no one was injured and it sounds as though no records were lost in the blaze, but still… it’s a sad sight. More at the mad genealogist. Maybe I’m sensitive to the issue particularly because where I live in Western North Carolina there are some courthouses that have been burned several times over the years. Many records in those counties are nonexistent until very recently due to the courthouse burnings. “It’s a burned records county” has become a term that ends many questions starting with a “have you looked for a ?”

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The County Page highlight Continues…. This week the Aiken County, SC Genealogy resource page. Aiken County was created in 1871 from Edgefield, Orangeburg, Barnwell and Lexington Counties. It was named for the president of the South Carolina railroad, William Aiken. The town of Aiken was established as a depot on the South Carolina rail line between Hamburg (on the Savannah River) and Charleston, this would become the county seat. In the 1870s the area became a resort for the well to do from the north. The Savannah River Site was established in Aiken County in 1950 as a nuclear bomb plant.

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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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This is a bit more of a housekeeping post of sorts. I wanted to let you know of a series that I’m going to start next week. I wanted to highlight each county of the state in article form. I do have the article profiles already, but I thought each one deserved the visibility of a regular post. This doesn’t mean that the next 46 weeks are going to be straight through county page summaries. I do intend to break up the series somewhat with the other content. As always, article submissions are welcome, so if you would like to post something on YOUR family history or an area of South Carolina you’ve researched Contact us directly, or consider submitting your article to the South Carolina Genealogy Directory.

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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.

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.

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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I’m pleased to announce several exciting new features on the site. Those of you with sharp eyes have already spotted some of them I’m sure. A long time ago we had a way of posting queries and frankly, the forum software I’ve had previously was useless to keep out the junk. Well, I’m diving in again with a forum for queries at the South Carolina Genealogy Forum. You should be able to share the same login here and in the forum. Currently there’s an area for statewide queries, but I expect to narrow down to a forum per county. I’ve also launched a new Web directory called the South Carolina Genealogy Directory The point of this is to focus on Genealogy and History links plus those of interest to South Carolina Genealogy. Finally, I’m introducing a once per month Newsletter to start in March. To sign up early visit South Carolina Genealogy Newsletter. All of the services are free. The directory would be a great place to include your genealogy related web site (preferred listings are available for a small cost, but you can submit for free.) I’ve included a forum for category requests for the directory as well. Read on below the fold if you like for the official press release

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This is just an “in between” regular articles update. As some of you have noticed I’ve been going through the county pages, adding more information there. As you can imagine the process takes a little bit of time. I’ve managed to get to a couple county pages per day. I’m currently about halfway through. I’m not moving in any particular order, other than the counties that seem to be more popular (visited more often) get higher priority.

Additionally, if you are aware of other links for a county and would like to submit those, or an article for the site, you are more than welcome to do so through the Contact Us Page.

There are now forums for so you can post a query either statewide, or for each county at the South Carolina Genealogy Forums and those links are starting to be added to the respective county pages.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to say that if you have a genealogy related web site I would be greatly honored if you would link to our site, the code to do so is <a href=”http://www.southcarolinagenealogy.org/”>South Carolina Genealogy</a> – you can simply copy and past into your site! Thanks very much in advance and if you do so, you might want a link back to your site, get a free listing in our South Carolina Genealogy Directory.

Thanks for your help and support.