State Documents in the BDC and on the Web

There have been considerable changes in the arrangement of the information including updates where appropriate and deletions when needed. The links were updated October 12, 2021.  - gmc

There are two major agencies in South Carolina that provide access to the rich heritage of state government documents: the State Library and the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Each agency has its own mission and collection focus which I will try to adequately describe below.

South Carolina State Library 
According to the State Library's Sheila Dorsey writing in the More e-newsletter dated 6 April 2018:

For the purpose of the State Library, documents are defined, in short, as publications in print or electronic format produced by state agencies or officials which are intended for public use or general distribution. State government documents include annual reports, agency newsletters, maps, research papers, books, public university catalogs, pamphlets, and many other items.

Our role is directed by South Carolina Code of Laws 60-2-10. This role includes the responsibility to collect, organize, and retain these publications for state government employees, agencies, legislators, and the public. We are the official state depository of all state publications, but also provide eleven depository system libraries across the state, and the Library of Congress, with copies of selected materials.

You may note that the State Library uses that word "publication" often. The term publication has its root in the Latin verb publicare meaning to "make public". The Vocabulary.com Dictionary defines publication as a product designed to communicate with the public, usually printed on paper but alternatively or simultaneously communicated via electronic means, as in the case of an online publication placed on the Internet. Thus, the State Library collects both physical and digital state documents to help citizens understand the actions of governmental bodies and their officials both in the present time as well as in the past. The State Library has an ongoing digitization effort to make historical paper records and current "born-digital" state documents available online through the South Carolina State Documents Depository.

The main access points to the state documents that the South Carolina State Library provides are the SCLENDS catalog for the physical printed publications and the South Carolina State Documents Depository which provides access to publications produced by state agencies and state-supported academic institutions including those “born digital” documents often originally published on agency websites.

You may recognize the SCLENDS search screen because this is the same catalog that Beaufort County Library and the other member Libraries use.  

Sometimes the documents found in SCLENDS are linked out to display the electronic version of that particular document. Sometimes the State Library will loan out a state document. For example, one can borrow a printed copy of the "Report of the South Carolina State Election Commission" from the State Library with a valid Beaufort County Library card number. Click the "Place Hold" icon on the far right and enter your library card number and password into the next screen and follow the directions to request delivery of the item to your favorite branch library for you to pick up  OR simply click on the URL under "Electronic resources" and get the publication delivered to your screen electronically. 

Finding state documents can be quite confusing so the State Library has created a South Carolina State Documents Depository subject guide for citizens and residents to use. 

South Carolina Department of Archives and History (a.k.a. the State Archives) 

The South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH)  is an independent state agency whose mission is to preserve and promote the documentary and cultural heritage of the Palmetto State. Its ruling legislation is the Public Records Act (Code of Laws of South Carolina 1976, as amended, Sectons 30-1-10 through 30-1-170). Until the State Legislature tapped the Historical Commission of the State of South Carolina to be the official body to take care of its records in 1905, individual South Carolina public officials safeguarded government records, usually with great zeal and sometimes with great courage and only after personal sacrifice. For many years of its existence, the State Archives has been undermanned and underfunded, often relying on a very small number of employees. (See The Palmetto State's Memory: A History of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1905-1960 by Charles H. Lesser, 2009 to learn more).

The South Carolina State Archives holds more than 10,000 record series of non-current state, county, and municipal records, as well as copies of records relating to South Carolina government and history from other governments and private sources. The collections at SCDAH are one of the most comprehensive state archival collections in the United States, spanning more than 325 years of South Carolina history. A primary function of SCDAH is to work in partnership with state agency and local government officials in the proper management of their records and to identify and preserve for public access those of historical/archival value (subjects of the July 22, 2018 - Beaufort County records - and July 29, 2018 - Municipal records - posts here in Connections.) 

The main access points to the state documents that the South Carolina Department of Archives and History protects and provides are: SCArchCat (the SCDAH's online catalog), the Summary Guide to Holdings, the South Carolina Electronic Records Archive, and the Records Online Index.  The State Archives has an Online Resources landing page that includes access to the State Historic Properties Records, State Historic Preservation Office's ArchSite and South Carolina State Government Website Archives. 

The SCArchCat is the State Archives's online catalog. It provides summary level information on all series, full descriptions of over half of the series, and lists of containers and folders of many of the series.  In addition to keyword searches, you can do other searches such as these three types: 

1. Advanced Search - Type in subject, name, agency, place, or other search term to search specific fields, and get lists and description of records relating to your search.
2. Browse Subject Terms - View alphabetical lists of subject terms, names and other index terms available for searching.
3. Browse Holdings - View lists of holdings arranged alphabetically by series title or creator, or numerically by series number.

For example, I did a Keyword Search on "Beaufort County" and got 30 hits. 

The South Carolina Archives Summary Guide to Holdings has seven separate guides: Summary Guide to State Records; Summary Guide to Local Records; Summary Guide to Federal Records; Summary Guide to British Records; Summary Guide to Records of the Confederate States of America; Summary Guide to Government Records of Other States and Nations; and a Summary Guide to Private Records. Taken together, the seven guides constitute basic information about every record series housed in the State Archives - and thus are a critical reference for helping a researcher decide what record series might be the most useful for the question at hand.

The South Carolina Electronic Records Archive (SCERA) holds electronic records of permanent value that have been transferred to the SCDAH by state and local governments. It also includes some digital versions of physical records held at the Archives. Searching is by keyword/full-text or browsing. The Archives staff suggest that if you do use a keyword search, you should also browse nearby records to see related materials. (You may also want to read the Connections post I wrote about SCERA when it went live in February 2016. It provides greater details on how to use this resource.) 

At present SCERA contains 6 main collections: 

• Birth Certificates, 1915-1920
• British and Private Records
• Local Records - including Beaufort County's Conveyance Book Indexes, 1863 - 1926 
• State Records
• Constitutional and Organic Papers
• Map Collection

You can download individual files directly from SCERA - though I will admit that it is a clunky, not-very intuitive interface for researchers. 

Let's say that you are looking for a birth certificate for Elizabeth Green. 

And as luck would have it, there is one in the birth certificates for children born in 1916. And if you're really lucky, she is just the "Elizabeth Green" you seek!

This Elizabeth Green is the daughter of a Beaufort County Jericho Plantation farmer, John Green and his wife, Josephine Goodwine Green also of Jericho Plantation. Elizabeth was born on April 29, 1916 and delivered by a midwife, Kizzie Moultrie (?).  

Please note: Only birth certificates from 1915 through 1920 are currently available as South Carolina law requires a 100 year delay in the release of birth records to the general public. The Vital Records Office of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control contains information about how to secure birth certificates. 

Be sure to explore the six categories. For example, under the Constitutional and Organic Documents webpage, you can find the Articles of the Agreement of the Lords Proprietors from 1674. (Lord William Berkeley wasn't allowed to sign. Read why in the Encoded Archival Description in the left hand column of the cataloging data. It does take a bit of time for the image to load).

The Records Online Index provides access to only about 308,500 items cared for by the State Archives but it is the index to State records that I use the most often because it provides an item-level index to selected colonial, state, and county record series. The Records Online Index covers 55 record series and provides details descriptions of 308, 580 records. Some series indexed by the Records Online Index include online images; some series are available on microfilm at both the SCDAH and here in the BDC Research Room; and some record series are only available in the State Archives building in Columbia. Ask us when you're in doubt.  

To facilitate research because Beaufort is a "burned county", the BDC makes 23 series of SCDAH microfilm available to customers in order to help compensate for the scarcity of pre-1865 Beaufort County courthouse records. All BDC microfilm, including the state record series outlined below, are listed in the SCLENDS catalog.  The series are arranged here in chronological order based on the earliest date:

Records in the British Public Records Office Relating to South Carolina, 1663-1782

South Carolina Commons House of Assembly Journals, vol. 1: 1692-1701; vol. 3 - 6, 1706-1724

SC Court of Common Pleas, 1703-1790

Records of the South Carolina Court of Admiralty, 1716-1732 

SC Court of Common Pleas, Renunciations of Dower, 1726-1775

Memorials of Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century South Carolina Land Titles, 1731-1775

South Carolina Court of General Sessions, 1769-1776 

Records of the South Carolina Treasury, 1775-1780

Petitions to the General Assembly 1776-1883 

Accounts Audited of Claims Growing Out of the Revolution in South Carolina, 1779-1793

South Carolina Will Transcripts, 1782-1868  

South Carolina Treasury Ledgers and Journals, 1783-1791

South Carolina Tax Returns, 1783-1899 

Duties on Trade at Charleston, 1784-1789

South Carolina State Plats, 1784-1868

South Carolina Treasury Ledgers and Journals, 1791-1865 

South Carolina Tax Returns, 1783-1899

Duties on Trade at Charleston, 1784-1789
 
South Carolina State Plats, 1784-1868
 
South Carolina Treasury Ledgers and Journals, 1791-1865
 
Free Negro Capitation Tax Books, Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1811-1860
 
Records of the Confederate Historian, 1862-1905
 
South Carolina Reports and Resolutions, 1868-1900
 
Though the original John M. McCrady plats, ca. 1680-1929 belong to Charleston County government where there is an online search screen, the State Archives has the plats indexed in the Records Online Index and provides access to the records on microfilm in the SCDAH Research Room. We bought the series on microfilm long before the Charleston County Register of Deeds office began digitizing the McCrady series.   
    

I believe that you are now getting a sense of the challenges faced when trying to identify and locate accessible copies of State Records and why BDC staff cannot always give a researcher an immediate answer to his/her questions.

Be sure to search the SCLENDS catalog for cataloged State documents in our holdings. This can be a bit tricky since South Carolina has had 57 governors and 239 state government offices  through time.