South Carolina NewsPapers

South Carolina's newspaper history began with the publication of the first issue of the South Carolina Gazette in 1732. The largest collection of South Carolina newspapers is found at the South Caroliniana Library; the Charleston Library Society and the South Carolina Department of Archives and History have slightly smaller collections (see Archives, Libraries, and Societies for addresses).

Newspapers are an important source of South Carolina vital records because marriage and death notices appeared in most newspapers. Newspaper extracts have been regularly published in The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research and South Carolina Historical Magazine. Dozens of published books of newspaper extracts are available. A bibliography is found in George K. Schweitzer, South Carolina Genealogical Research, (Knoxville, Tenn.: the author, 1985): 114–19.

While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.

Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.

Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.

Search South Carolina Historical Records - Databases include Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records; Birth, Marriage & Death Records; Voter Lists & Census Records; Immigration & Emigration Records; Obituary Records; Military Records; Family Tree Records; Pictures; Stories, Memories & Histories; Directories & Member Lists and much more....

The first step in searching a newspaper is to identify those which served the area of interest and which have survived. The three most necessary tools are bibliographies (What was published?), inventories of library and depository holdings (Where is it?), and indexes (How do I find what I want in it?).

Back to top
South Carolina Site Map | | Real Time Web Analytics by Clicky | Copyright © 2009 Genealogy Inc,