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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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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The South Carolina Genealogical Society is a non profit organization with several chapters throughout the state. Membership in the state society is included in the chapter membership fee. Libraries and Organizations interested in subscribing to the SCGS publications can subscribe for $8. They publish the Carolina Herald. The archives of the Society are located in…

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Located in present day Columbia, Old Shandon is a National Historic district and has a high concentration of homes dating from the 19th century. The city of Shandon was incorporated in 1904 and then annexed into Columbia in 1913. They’ve recently had their centennial celebration in 2004. The growth that led to the incorporation was spurred by the extension of Columbia’s trolley line out to the the area. The Lot’s were laid out around 1900. Old Shandon was referred to as a trolley car suburb and the later Annex of another area also referred to as Shandon was referred to as an automobile suburb.

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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.

The Kershaw-Cornwallis House was originally built in 1777 by an early settler of Camden. (Camden, in fact, is the oldest inland town in South Carolina.) Joseph Kershaw had established a store in Camden for a Charleston mercantile company and did quite well. In fact, Camden had become an inland trade hub of sorts by 1768. The House was confiscated or seized by the British in 1780 when Lord Cornwallis setup a headquarters in the house. The British occupied it until 1781. Joseph Kershaw lived there until his death in 1791. The family sold the house by 1805 and it served as home for the Camden Orphan Society until 1822. In the Civil War, Camden House was a confederate storehouse and was destroyed in 1865. The house was rebuilt in 1877 at the Camden Revolutionary War Site.

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