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How to Research Your Family History in South Carolina

South Carolina rewrites two assumptions researchers bring from other states. First: there are almost no civil marriage records before July 1911, because the state required no license – for two centuries, marriages lived in church registers, newspapers, and implication. Second: for the entire colonial era, the records weren’t in the counties at all – deeds, wills, and court business for the whole province were recorded centrally in Charleston until 1785, so colonial research means Charleston series, now gathered at the state archives. Add the constitutional ban on divorce (none granted 1878–1949) and a strong free online index at the Department of Archives and History, and South Carolina becomes a state you research by its own rules.

Start With Vital Records

Statewide birth and death registration began January 1915 under what is now DHEC’s Vital Records office; delayed birth certificates fill the rural gaps. Charleston is the exception that helps: the city registered deaths from 1821 (one of the oldest urban death series in the country) and births from 1877 – city health records now served through the archives and platforms.

Marriages: no licenses were required until July 1911. Before then, prove marriages through church registers, newspaper announcements (the Charleston papers are abstracted in published volumes), marriage settlements recorded in the deed books (property agreements before marriage – an elite but rich source), and implied evidence in probate and pension files. From 1911, licenses are with each county’s Probate Court.

Divorce: South Carolina’s constitution prohibited it – no divorces were granted from 1878 until 1949. If a couple “divorced” in that window, look for the decree in another state (Georgia and North Carolina commonly) or for separation agreements in the deed books.

The County: Probate Court And Register Of Deeds

Know the jurisdiction history: parishes (colonial, lowcountry), then districts (1800–1868), then counties – a record may be filed under any of the three names for the same ground. And Sherman’s 1865 march cost some courthouses and part of Columbia’s records their lives; the centralized colonial series and the archives’ microfilm blunt the damage.

  • Probate Court – an elected Probate Judge in each county holds estates (wills, administrations, inventories, guardianships) and the post-1911 marriage licenses.
  • Register of Deeds – historically styled the Register of Mesne Conveyance (RMC), recording deeds and mortgages; the old name still appears on Charleston’s office.
  • Clerk of Court – Common Pleas and General Sessions files, and the equity/chancery records whose bills and answers narrate family disputes in detail.

The Charleston Centralization – And The Scdah

Until county courts arrived in 1785, the province recorded everything centrally: colonial deeds (“charleston deeds” cover land anywhere in South Carolina), wills and estate inventories, the Court of Common Pleas, land memorials and plats (the quitrent-era property descriptions), and the colonial land grant series. These records live at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History (Columbia), whose free online index – a combined name index spanning grants, plats, wills, legislative papers, Confederate records, and more – is the front door to the whole state: search it before anything else. The South Carolina Historical Society (Charleston) adds the great manuscript, plantation, and family-paper collections.

African American And Gullah Geechee Research

South Carolina’s majority-Black history left records of national importance. Post-emancipation: the Freedmen’s Bureau’s South Carolina field offices (labor contracts, marriage registrations, complaints, the Sea Islands’ land experiments) free on FamilySearch; the 1868 voter registrations; and the state’s Reconstruction-era records at SCDAH. Under slavery: the centralized and county records both matter – estate inventories, wills, deeds, and mortgages name enslaved individuals, and the lowcountry’s plantation books (SCHS and university collections) can carry lists across generations. The Gullah Geechee communities of the Sea Islands add church registers, benevolent-society books, and Penn Center-era records; the WPA ex-slave narratives for South Carolina are among the project’s largest sets. Charleston’s antebellum free Black community appears in city directories, capitation-tax lists, and the certificates and guardianship papers its members were forced to keep.

Huguenot, Scots-Irish, And Upcountry Paths

The French Huguenot migration of the 1680s planted congregations whose registers and the Huguenot Society of South Carolina’s transactions document the founding lowcountry families. The upcountry filled with Scots-Irish and German settlers on colonial township grants – the grant, plat, and memorial series at SCDAH are their origin records – with Presbyterian and Lutheran registers carrying the church side. Revolutionary research leans on the audited accounts (state payments for wartime service and supplies, name-indexed at SCDAH) – South Carolina’s answer to thin federal rolls.

Online And Free

SCDAH’s combined index is free. FamilySearch carries the digitized estate files, deeds, and Bureau records. The published Charleston newspaper abstracts and Huguenot transactions are in genealogical libraries. Subscription platforms add the Charleston city records, censuses, and papers, free through South Carolina libraries.

Research Checklist

  1. Search SCDAH’s free combined index first – it spans the colonial and state series in one pass.
  2. Pre-1911 marriage? Church registers, newspaper abstracts, and marriage settlements in the deed books.
  3. No divorces 1878–1949 – look out of state or for deed-book separations.
  4. Colonial line: Charleston-recorded deeds, wills, grants, plats, and memorials at SCDAH.
  5. Translate jurisdictions: parish → district → county for the same ground.
  6. African American research: Bureau records and 1868 rolls forward; inventories, plantation books, and the free-Black city records backward.

Sources and References