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Records Held at the SC Archives


A brief listing of the type and scope of records held by the Department is given below. A more detailed listing of the Department's holdings can be found in the web version of The South Carolina Archives Summary Guide to Holdings, The South Carolina Archives: A Temporary Summary Guide (1976), A Guide to Local Government Records in the South Carolina Archives (1987), and by consulting the On-Line Index.

  • Legislative records: Journals from 1692 and acts from 1691, supplemented by bills, petitions, reports, and so forth from 1782.
  • Court records: Journals and case papers of provincial and appellate courts.
  • State agencies and departments: Non-current records of existing and defunct organizations.
  • Executive records: Council journals from 1671; governor's papers from 1865, with rare scattered earlier material.
  • Treasury records: Ledgers, journals, cashbooks, vouchers, and stub entry books from 1721.
  • Land records: Plats and grants virtually complete from 1731; nearly complete records of grants and conveyances 1671-1730; memorials of land titles, 1732-1775; microfilm of deeds available to 1920.
  • Records of the Secretary of the Province and State: Wills, inventories of estates, marriage settlements, commissions, mortgages, bills of sale, registers of trademarks, and charters of incorporation from 1671.
  • Military service records: Accounts Audited of Claims Growing Out of the Revolution; rosters of Confederate War soldiers; Confederate pension applications; scattered records of colonial wars, War of 1812, Mexican War and Spanish-American war; records of the Adjutant General's Office.
  • County and Municipal records: Several thousand cubic feet of manuscript records and a growing collection of microfilm produced by the Department; microfilm and typed copies of selected records to 1860 made by the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Works Progress Administration.
  • Reference collection: An ever-growing microfilm collection of public and semi-public records of or relating to South Carolina from the British Public Records Office, the National Archives, and private manuscript repositories; published reference works; bibliographies; archival guides; and monographs on South Carolina history.

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