The Beaufort District Collection often gets visits from customers who wish to research the history of their property. Property research can also lead to genealogical research on the families who once dwelled in your house or owned that land. The BDC has multiple resources to aid you in your search for information.
· Directories
Directories list addresses of individuals alongside other pertinent information. City Directories can be especially helpful in learning who lived in your house or on your street during the mid to late 20th century.
o Beaufort Telephone Directories (Starting in 1954)
o Beaufort City Directories (Starting in 1961)
o Hilton Head - Beaufort Cross Reference Directories (Starting in 1986)
· City and County Maps
Historic and contemporary maps can show how land has changed over time. While not every area was mapped out and not every parcel had its boundaries defined on a map, these can be helpful to get a better idea of the area. Maps in the BDC are listed in the SCLENDS catalog. I just wish that there was some way to eliminate all the hits for electronic media in the State Library from the results list. There is not. Inside the Research Room we have a BDC Map Index spreadsheet that former docent Susan Keener prepared that help us help you narrow down which maps may be most helpful to your research.
· Newspapers
Newspapers would sometimes publish real estate information, especially if it was part of legal proceedings where a newspaper announcement would be necessary. If you know a date when the title of your land was transferred, you can check the BDC’s Beaufort Gazette, Island Packet or other newspaper copies on microfilm to see if there were any related articles or announcements around that time. Newspapers can also have information related to the homeowners, especially if they were prominent members of society.
Ask to see the Martin Guide to selective newspaper article titles 1882 - 1936 in the Research Room.
Local historian Gerhard Spieler wrote columns for many years about the people, places, and structures inside Beaufort County. Ask us about the index that docent Laura Lewis created for his articles.
When you find names of former owners of your property, you should check to see if any of the them just so happen to also be included in our Online Obituary Index files. Obituaries are often wonderful sources of information about former residents of particular properties. The time frame of the obituaries file is now 1862 - 1987, with the bulk of those obituaries beginning in 1882 and the Palmetto Post newspaper back files Please note: To see the obituaries, you'll need to contact us. (The Obituary Index file continues to grow due to Beloved BDC Docent Kathy Mitchell who added 2223 new names to the index during 2021.)
· Vertical Files
Vertical files are folders of newspaper clippings, images, photocopies, and more on a specific topic. We have vertical files on certain properties, but not every property has a file. Ask the BDC about our lists. Among those must likely to be helpful are the ones titled "Historic Districts", "Historic Houses", "Historic Structures", or a specific address, such as "509 Carteret Street : Beaufort, SC."
Also we have some family files, usually because one of the family members gave the BDC a copy of their research to share with others. However, the family files do not include every family who once lived in Beaufort District or its subsequent counties. In fact we encourage donations of materials about any family residing in Beaufort District for 2 or more generations. .
Please note: Creating and maintaining vertical files is a dynamic process. The content is often updated. We have lists of the vertical files about properties and family surnames inside the Research Room. You can also search on addresses and family surnames in the SCLENDS catalog, limiting the format to "Serials and magazines" and the location to BDC to get the list - but here again there is no way for us to eliminate the hits for e-serials and magazines held at the State Library within the SCLENDS software.
· Books and Other Written Materials
o Memoirs, Diaries, and Oral Histories - The BDC has a number of memoirs and diaries inside the Research Room. You might get lucky and find one written by or about a former owner of your property. This is, however, a long shot. You can search the SCLENDS catalog for people and places - but it never hurts to ask about what we have.
o Historic District Guides and Historic Resources Surveys such as
South Carolina : A Guide to the Palmetto State (1941)
Historic Resources of the Lowcountry (1990, 1979)
Beaufort County Above Ground Historic Resources Survey (1998) [also online]
Beaufort Historic Landmark District : Beaufort, South Carolina National Historic Landmark Documentation (2000) [BDC only]
A Guide to Historic Beaufort County Carolina (2006)
Beaufort Historic District : National Historic Landmarks Survey : March 23, 2012 [BDC only]
The Official Guide to the Historic Houses, Churches and Other Points of Interest of Beaufort, South Carolina, 10th ed., rev. (2014)
o Beaufort County Historical Society Papers that discuss historic structures in the area are: Beaufort District Landmarks and Early Historical Sites; The Catholic Church and the Houses on New Street and Vicinity; Old Houses on the Bluff; Eight Beaufort Homes; Thoughts and Recommendations Concerning the Preservation of Beaufort's Cultural and Historical Resources; Bay Street and Beaufort in the 1920s as I Remember It; The Point; Robertville; Old Families of Beaufort : The Stuarts and the Bulls; Old Families of Beaufort : The Talbirds, the Barnwells, and the Chaplins of St. Helena; Purrysburg; Bluffton and the Okatie; and Grahamville.
o Beaufort County zoning maps, plans, and city planning reports
o South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine
o Archaeological Reports The greatest value to property researchers lies in the "Historical Context" narrative and illustrations in many an archaeological report. We have several hundreds of archaeological reports in the Research Room.
Perhaps some of these materials will have information related to your property. Consult with BDC Staff other potential resources that may help you.
Online Resources
The Beaufort County Library provides online access to the Ancestry Library Edition database on public access computers inside our buildings. ALE contains more than 10,800 databases of genealogical material including
o Census Records (United States: 1790-1880, 1900-1940; 1950 will be released on 1 April 2022 - expect it to be fully indexed within 6 to 9 months)o Directories
o Wills, Probates, Land, & Tax Records
· BCL @ Lowcountry Digital Library
o The Beaufort District Collection has digitized a small segment of its photographs and postcards collections. Sometimes these images depict homes and properties, giving customers a view of what the property may have looked like in the past.
o These images are hosted on the Lowcountry Digital Library website.
o You can search with specific keywords or browse our 8 digital collections on the Lowcountry Digital Library.
· Sanborn Maps
o The Town of Port Royal is featured on the Beaufort maps of 1899, 1905, 1912, and 1924-1958. Bluffton has an unpublished map for a small portion of the town done in 1929. Yemassee has two unpublished Sanborn Maps from 1939 and 1940 that cover small, very specific areas.
o The Sanborn Insurance maps can be accessed online. Select Beaufort County in their drop-down menu to find maps for this area.
· Deeds and Plats
o The Beaufort District Collection does not hold any deeds of property, although this is one of our most common requests. The Beaufort County’s Register of Deeds Office is the official repository of documents relating to property. Some of the County's deed books and plats have been digitized on their website as browse files. [Browse in this sense means "to look over or through an aggregate of things casually especially in search of something of interest". In other words, you might not be able to search these records as efficiently as you might like to do.]
The BDC does however provide other types of information about land such as South Carolina Council Journal Petitions, 1734 - 1774; South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1719 - 1788; Abstracts of Land Titles; South Carolina's Royal Grants, 1732 - 1775; South Carolina's State Grants, 1784 - 1791 and several microfilmed series of land related records from the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in our Research Room by appointment.
· County GIS and Real Property Search
o The County GIS Map and Real Property Search function are also helpful tools for finding tax and title-related information.
o The GIS Map
o The Real Property Search page
· Historic American Building Survey
o The Historic American Building Survey reports and photographs have been digitized by the Library of Congress. Depending on the age of your building, it could have been documented by the surveyors. Search the HABS database.
· The South Carolina Historic Properties Record (SCHPR)
o The South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office has a searchable online database of digitized records relating to historic properties, named The South Carolina Historic Properties Record (SCHPR). This includes South Carolina’s National Register nominations, the South Carolina Statewide Survey of Historic Properties, and other reports.
Here are the most important points made in all of the above:
1) BDC Staff will do our best to share what we have with you and suggest additional resources to you but you have to do the grunt work. Our job is to acquire and share appropriate materials and guide you regarding those materials and guide you to other resources staff know about from our experience that might be found other places.
2) It can never be stated too many times: Beaufort is a "burned county" which means that almost all of the area's pre-Civil War records were destroyed in 1865 and record-keeping in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had considerable flaws as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment