Will Poet Robert Woodward Barnwell Identify Yourself?

If you've followed the Murdaugh saga of the past few years, you are probably aware that names can run up and down in a particular family. In fact, I found Jason Ryan's explanation of the various "Busters" and "Richards" and "Randolphs" in the "Dramatis Personae" section of Swamp Kings (2024) [audio book, e-book, print book] quite helpful. 

I had a similar situation relating to an author, in this case a poet who penned "Dawn at Daufuskie." And since this is National Poetry Month, I share the poem: 

Dawn at Daufuskie

I saw the fainting stars pass to their death.

I heard the frolic winds pausing for breath.

As the dawn crept upward all was still.

And my heart alone knew motion and thrill.

I saw the silver sea shining as steel.

The silence was pressing its golden heel

On lizard in leaves and bird on bough:

But I heard blood throbbing from heart to brow

I saw the fleecy clouds sink -- every one.

I heard no singing bird welcome the sun.  

As the gold flashed landward glory spread, 

And I heard my heart as its pulses sped.   

For years I attributed the poem to Robert Woodward Barnwell of Beaufort born 1801, died 1882 in Columbia. I did displays for National Poetry Month over the past decade that unintentionally ascribed the poems to the wrong Robert Woodward Barnwell. How did this happen? one asks. The answer is: "It is very easy to get persons with the exact same name mixed up when families perpetually use a name over and over through succeeding generations." 

In the course of unraveling this particular mystery, I discovered that The Story of an American Family by Stephen B. Barnwell, 1969 - considered the go to guide of all things Barnwell - lists a dozen different men named Robert Woodward Barnwell, the first one in 1801, and the last one listed born in 1959, though there probably are a few more RWB's now. In the index he calls the RWB I am most interested in today, "Senator." 

I discovered my mistake on 27 July 2017 as I was updating a Wordpress blog post I created nine years earlier. I was wondering why I could not find any references to poetry writing in all the online sources I found for Robert Woodward Barnwell nor in any of our own BDC resources at hand - except for three items.

Seeing the publication dates on the poetry books, Realities and Imaginations ... a Poem, [1938] and Dawn at Daufuskie and Other Poems (1936) got me to thinking about why the collections were published 50 years or more after RWB's death. I have these two titles on the shelves so I could look at the items in their entirety for clues. Luckily Dawn at Daufuskie had a copyright date of 1936 and a "Preface" written by the author in 1936. Obviously, the author was not my RWB as I had previously thought. The "Preface" also written by the author for Realities and Imaginations ... A Poem two years later indicates that he did not begin writing poetry until 1920 and that he was living in Florence, SC. More proof that I had mixed up men with the same name of Robert Woodward Barnwell.

Researching deeper in The Story of an American Family (whose index BTW only includes personal names, not topical subjects), I finally located the right Robert Woodward Barnwell, an Episcopalian priest by vocation and poet by avocation. 

I used information gleaned from a Florence Morning News obituary posted online to narrow down my options for searching the name index of The Story of An American Family. (When you scroll down about 3/4 of the way you'll find the portion related to the Rev. RWB.) The Florence Morning News obituary stated that he married  his second wife Malinda in 1902. I looked in the index to The Story of An American Family and found her name. I then read several pages both before and after page 354 to see if I could triangulate the proper RBW who wrote Realities and Imaginations ... a Poem and Dawn at Daufuskie and Other Poems. I had at last! 

Stephen B. Barnwell, author of Story of An American Family, writes about this particular Rev. Robert Woodward Barnwell, born 1860, died 1952, his wives, children, and grandchildren from page 352 - 357 including a number of photographs. 

Rev. Robert Woodward Barnwell, author of Realities and Imaginations ... a Poem and Dawn at Daufuskie and Other Poems was the son of another Rev. Robert Woodward Barnwell who died in 23 June 1863. His wife Mary Carter Singleton died a mere two days later thereby leaving three orphaned young sons to the care of relatives. In 1864 his brother Edward died leaving John Singleton Barnwell (1859 - 1932) and Robert Woodward Barnwell (20 November 1860 - 28 June 1952) to the care of their grandmother and aunts in Beaufort. John Singleton Barnwell never married and died without issue.  His brother, minister poet RWB had three children with his first wife Wilhelmina DuBose before her death in 1899. He and second wife Malinda McBee Brunson had six children. Malinda died in 1962 in Florence. All told then, minister poet RWB had 9 children all who survived to adulthood, most of whom married, and some of whom had children themselves. For details, you can come to read The Story of An American Family in our Research Room. 

You can see RWB, 1860 - 1952's headstone on the Find-A-Grave website.

For nine years I had been unintentionally sharing bad information. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I am sorry. This post is to encourage you to take your time before determining if you have the "right" person with a particular - and repetitive through the generations - name. Weigh all the evidence. Evaluate the documents. Use your finest most honed reasoning skills. When in doubt, explain your reasons why you think this particular person is the correct person for your genealogical chart. Doing so will make it easier for your descendants to evaluate any new evidence or documentation that may come to light in the future.

Learn more about another Robert Woodward Barnwell, 1801 - 1882 in our Wordpress blog.

Family Tree Magazine's "5 Clues You May Have Native American Ancestry"

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, I'd like to share a bit about the challenges of proving Native American ancestry. 

I cannot count the number of times that I have had a person call on the phone or show up in person to ask if the BDC staff could help them prove that there was a Cherokee brave or chief or princess in their family tree charts. The usual statement is something along the lines of "Grandma said that there was one," so of course it had to be true. Well, maybe it is true but a statement made by an elder or in a printed family history is not a proven fact backed up by genealogical evidence. It's not that Grandma is a liar. She's just relaying information that was probably relayed to her across the dining room table or perhaps at a family reunion picnic at some point in the past. Genealogical research, however, requires proof. 

Technically, meeting the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) requires that a researcher gathers and weighs the evidence for his/her statement based upon: 

1. Reasonably exhaustive research.
2. Complete and accurate source citations.
3. Thorough analysis and correlation.
4. Resolution of conflicting evidence.
5. Soundly written conclusion based on the strongest evidence.

Diane Haddad offered this advice about how to check out family lore regarding Native American ancestors in your family tree in an article I received by email back in July 2023. She offers these "5 Clues [that] You May Have Native American Ancestry:"

1. An I or In designation appears in the "race" columns for an ancestor in the 1860 - 1950 Federal United States censuses.  

2. A proven blood relative is named on an Indian reservation census or a tribal enrollment. Ancestry.com has a Native American Research guide posted online to point you to databases that may help you. FamilySearch.org offers a Native American wiki article with plenty of links out to potential sources as well. Although the free US Indian Census Rolls, 1885 - 1940 on Access Genealogy are not indexed, you can read and scroll through a lot of agency and tribal lists. 

3. A genetic genealogy test indicates you have DNA markers associated with American Indian ancestry - though it is important to remember that only half of your parent's genes make it to you and through the generations the likelihood that a particular string of genes or individual gene will endure becomes less and less. She also makes the point that DNA alone will not make a tribal government recognize you as a member. Since the predominant ancestor I get told about is purportedly a Cherokee, here's what the Cherokee Nation requires of its applicants for tribal membership (2018).  

4. Family stories and newspapers tell of Native ancestry, and your ancestors lived in areas where they would have come into contact with Native Americans should be treated as clues for further research. [The underline is mine for emphasis since so many family historians tend to jump to the conclusion that this "proves" their Native American ancestry. It does not meet the criteria of the Genealogical Proof Standard alone.]

5. An ancestor lived in Indian Territory (a.k.a. the state of Oklahoma) by the year 1900. 

Let me conclude that because the Cherokee were more of an upstate tribe, they fall outside the BDC's geographical imperative.  We have a few sources related to the coastal Indian groups, more specifically about the Yamasee, but other Native American groups in what is now the Southeastern part of the United States falls outside our collection scope. BDC staff will always share the resources we have in the Research Room with our in-facility customers who make an appointment: bdc@bcgov.net ; 843-255-6468 and will do our best to guide you to sources at other locations or on the open internet to assist you with your research. We do not however have the resources to do this type of in depth research on your behalf. 

Reminder: The Library is closed on Friday, November 10 and Saturday, November 11 for the Veterans Day holiday. Regular hours will resume on Monday, November 13, 2023.

Genealogy Insider: Finding Enslaved Ancestors Using Enslaved.org

Today's post is totally pirated from Family Tree Magazine's Genealogy Insider e-newsletter that arrived in my in-box on 9 February 2023. I have made some minor formatting changes but the content is wholly from Genealogy Insider. When I searched the database on the place "Beaufort" I got 319 hits. This database - to which you can contribute - is another tool in the toolbox for African American ancestral research. -- Grace Cordial

We have more access to records documenting enslaved people than ever before, thanks in large part to digital initiatives like Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (Enslaved.org). Kristina E. Poznan is the managing editor of Enslaved.org’s Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation, and she was kind enough to shed some light on this impressive resource.

Q: What is Enslaved.org? How does it differ from other sites?

Enslaved.org launched in 2019 and has been serving the needs of genealogists, students, and members of the public interested in named individuals who were part of the historical trade in enslaved people of African descent. Enslaved.org is a discovery hub that helps users to search and find information from a large and growing number of datasets and digital projects simultaneously. There is no fee and no log-in, just a free search tool.

Q: What sources are in Enslaved.org? How are they different from other sites?

The historians, archives, libraries, and museums that submit records about enslaved and emancipated people to Enslaved.org are generally gathering information from records more obscure than those found on other genealogical resource sites. These include probate inventories, runaway advertisements in newspapers, plantation registries, baptisms, coroners’ reports, and sale receipts. Getting information from these kinds of records is time-consuming, but they often provide a greater variety of details than a census.

Q: Why can I only sometimes see the original source?

Access to the original records is through the website of the project or institution that hosts the records. When they are available, we provide links to digitized sources, but in some cases the sources have not been digitized yet.

Q: Does data on Enslaved.org contain other kinds of information, too?

Yes, in addition to information about enslaved and emancipated peoples, Enslaved.org also contains some information about free people of color as well as some slave owners.

Q: How can I contribute information to Enslaved.org?

If you know of an archival record collection in which enslaved people are named and/or otherwise documented, let us know at enslaved.org@gmail.com and we will try to work with that institution to integrate it into our resources.

Kristina E. Poznan, PhD

Clinical Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland

Managing Editor of Enslaved.org’s Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation

Beaufort County Council Minutes, 1888 - 1970

As frequent Connections blog post readers are aware, responses to customer inquiries received by the BDC sometimes end up as catalysts behind certain blog posts. (No customer identification provided because the Library Bill of Rights and the Code of Ethics prohibits us from doing that - unless presented with a warrant from law enforcement.) Today's post arises from just such an inquiry. 

An off-site customer (who shall remain nameless for the reasons outlined above) was interested in an ancestor who sat on a local commission during the late Reconstruction period. I checked a few printed sources in the Research Room for the man's name. We did have an obituary for the man of interest which gave some clues such as his life span dates of 1850 to 1934 and the man's former slave-owner's name. But what other potential sources did we have to share? Hmmm..... 

The Martin Index inside the Research Room is a rudimentary article title index to selected items found in the Palmetto Post, Beaufort Gazette, and a few News & Courier articles for the period 1882 - 1936.  The Martin Index approach is more categorical than specific. For example, the category headings are "Civic Improvements; County Agents; Public Works," etc. rather than "Green, Mary" or "Water Department." The customer's person of interest died in 1934 so I decided that it was better to leave no stone unturned just in case something jumped out at me. I didn't expect to find anything particular to the former Commissioner and I did not. 

I pondered what else that we have that might provide more information. I then pulled the earliest of the County Council Minutes that we have on microfilm in the Research Room to determine how best to advise him on his next steps. While I was surveying the Minutes for the Board of County Commissioners, I decided to "quickly" survey the entire reel even though Minutes Books outside the period in which his person of interest lived were on it. The "quick review" turned into about 45 minutes worth of fast-forwarding and inching through the reel to determine precisely which Minutes book covered precisely which time spans. 

As it turned out, there are precisely 2561 pages worth of Minutes of the Board of County Commissioners, i.e. "County Council" for the period from December 1888 through December 1970. 8 years worth of minutes, through covering January 1910 through December 1918 were not extant at the time that the minutes were microfilmed. To my knowledge those missing minutes have not been found in the intervening 50 years. 

Margin notes made in the manuscript Minutes from 1888 - August 1935 serve as a rudimentary index of sorts to the content of the meetings. However, the margin notes disappear when the Minutes are submitted as typed documents beginning on 3 September 1935. If the customer wants to review the Minutes only during his ancestor's time span, he'll have to look at over 1000 pages of hand-written documents. These Minutes, like the local newspapers on microfilm, are discovered best by what I term the "read and roll"-with-no-guarantee-of-success method: an image by image, page by page, human eyeball and mind engaged search. 

The BDC has the following microfilmed Minutes books for the period 1888 - 1970 to share with our Research Room customers: 

• 4 December 1888 - 31 December 1894 (355 pp.) 
• 23 January 1895 - 23 December 1909 (343 pp.)
• 7 January 1919 - 5 November 1929 (200 pp.)
• 2 December 1929 - 6 August 1935 (192 pp.) 
• 3 September 1935 - 6 June 1944 (240 pp.) 
• 11 July 1944 - 14 June 1949 (136 pp.) 
• 12 July 1949 - 14 December 1954 (151 pp.) 
• 11 January 1955 - 8 December 1959 (172 pp.)
• 12 January 1960 - 12 December 1966 (260 pp.) 
• 3 January 1967 - July 28, 1969 (292 pp.) 
• 11 August 1969 - December 14, 1970 (211 pp.) 

The customer can also "read and roll" through microfilm covering his ancestor's life span in the following newspapers that we make available inside the Research Room. Note: Those that are accessible free of charge online through the Chronicling America website are linked below:  

• Port Royal Standard and Commercial (1874-1876)
• Beaufort Republican and Sea Island Chronicle (1869-1871) - of which only the 21 May 1870 issue is digitized on the Chronicling America website we have considerably more issues on microfilm than that
• Beaufort Republican (12 October 1871 - 16 October 1873)
• Port Royal Commercial and Beaufort County Republican (23 October 1873 - April 1874) 
• Beaufort Tribune (1874-1876) 
• Palmetto Post (15 January 1882 - 27 December 1906)
• Beaufort Gazette (16 July 1903 - 31 March 2015)
• County Democrat (20 July 1910 - 1 December 1911) 

I notified the customer that we had these sources available inside the Research Room and that BDC staff would be happy to set up an appointment for him to do his research. We'll do the same for you. 

Now that the BDC staff is a staff of one, an appointment is a must. Contact bdc@bcgov.net or call 843-255-6446 to make the arrangements. Be sure to allow up to 72 hours before getting a response. Please note: BDC staff does not monitor business communications when the Library is closed or when staff is out of the building.

Getting Started on Property Research in the Research Room by Cassandra Knoppel

Latest update: 16 April 2026 -gmc

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.

We can guide you about how to perform the research inside the Research Room or offer suggestions about other agencies that may contain useful information about a specific property. We are seldom a one-stop shop when it comes to property histories. That said though, we can almost always help customers get further along their research paths through our materials and knowledge of resources here and elsewhere. Please note: Library Staff do not track property titles for customers. 

· 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. However the SCLENDS catalog can be a bit clunky when it comes to maps. 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 - 1999, 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.

· 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. 

· 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
• Grahamville. 

        o Beaufort County zoning maps, plans, and city planning reports

o South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1899 - 

o Archaeological Reports in the Research Room may be helpful in some cases. 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. They are listed in the SCLENDS catalog.

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 (ALE) database on public access computers and through your cellphone or laptop if you sign into our public WIFI inside library system buildings. ALE contains more than 11,000 databases of genealogical material including: 

o Census Records (United States: 1790-1880, 1900-1950

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 9 digital collections on the Lowcountry Digital Library.  

· Sanborn Maps 

o If your property is in Downtown Beaufort, there is a chance that it will be depicted on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for the Town of Beaufort. These maps began in 1884 and were updated sporadically until 1924, with revisions being added into the 1950’s. However, these maps very rarely show property outside of the downtown area.

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

 o The Real Property (Archive) function is also helpful to find more information dating back to the mid-1990’s. 

· 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 (SHPO)

o The South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office has a searchable online database of digitized records relating to historic properties including some research guidance. 

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. 

IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862 - 1918 on ALE

On July 1, 1862, Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act, creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue (later renamed to the Internal Revenue Service). This act was intended to “provide Internal Revenue to support the Government and to pay interest on the Public Debt.” Instituted in the height of the Civil War, the “Public Debt” at the time primarily consisted of war expenses.

The Internal Revenue Act also established the Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and allowed the country to be divided into collection districts, of which assessors and collectors were appointed. Among the 10,517 databases or so in Ancestry Library Edition is the U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862 - 1918. 

Taxable goods and services were determined by legislative acts passed throughout the years. All persons, partnerships, firms, associations, and corporations submitted to the assistant assessor of their division, a list showing the amount of annual income, articles subject special taxes and duties, and the quantity of goods made or sold that were charged with taxes or duties. The assistant assessors collected and compiled these lists into two general lists. These lists were:

1. A list of names of all individuals residing in the division who were subject to taxation

2. A list of names of all individuals residing outside the division, but who were owners of property in the division

These lists were organized alphabetically according to surname and recorded the value, assessment, or enumeration of taxable income or items and the amount of tax due. After all examinations and appeals, copies of these lists were given to the collector who then went and collected the taxes.

The assessment lists are divided into 3 categories:

1. Annual

2. Monthly

3. Special

Annual and monthly lists are for taxes assessed or collected within those periods of time. Special lists supplemented incomplete annual and monthly lists and also included any taxes that were indicated as “special” by the assessors.

About the Records:

Form 23, Assessment List, was the form used for many years to record tax information. Although there are several different versions of this form, it generally recorded:

• Name of Collection District
• Name of Collector
• Date of the list
• Instructions for completing the form
• Name of person or business being taxed
• Address
• Taxable period
• Amount reported by the collector
• Remarks on the assessment
• Article or occupation taxed
• Record of payment if the tax was paid
• Amount paid or abated

Form 58, List of Unassessable Collections, recorded the receipt and disbursement of unassessed collections. Unassessed collections could include: conscience money, paid court order fines, and offers of compromise, among others. There are records in this database relating to South Carolina but only for the period 1864-1866. Records from 38 other states for various other spans of time are also included. 

I used the US, IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862 - 1918 database within ALE  to see if I could find any records related to my own ancestors who lived in Beaufort District for generations. And I did! 

As it turned out, the Tax Assessment Lists for Beaufort District appear in the records of South Carolina District 2, Division #8, on pages 482 -486 of the list that was made between August 1865 and December 1866. I learned that my great-great-great uncle T. G. Buckner (who had been Beaufort District's Clerk of Court before and during the Civil War) had to pay the federal government a $2.00 tax on the accessed value of his carriage made on May 1, 1865. According to the revenue agent, the carriage was worth $200.00.

Perhaps you should explore this particular database in Ancestry Library Edition in hopes of discovering one of your ancestors listed therein, too. 

Search Tips for Ancestry Library Edition

In my not so humble opinion, one of the good things to come out of the COVID-19 public health crisis is how our Library vendor, ProQuest, pivoted to allow us to offer you access at home to

Ancestry Library Edition (ALE for short). Our statistics on ALE access have increased 2  to 3- to 4-times some months since the introduction of  home access back in April 2020. As the statistics show, home access has been a well-embraced new (if perhaps only temporary) Library service. 

We were recently notified that home access will continue at least to 31 December 2021. Hip! Hip! Hooray! But it may - or may not - disappear as an option for our customers at that time. We all will just have to wait and see what happens on that front later this year. In the meantime, I cannot say it loud or often enough: Please take full advantage of free home access to Ancestry Library Edition while you can. 

I'm sure that when you watch broadcast television, you've seen some of the many Ancestry.com advertisements. One knows from watching the ads that Ancestry.com is one of the biggest family history websites available. But just how big a website is it? The Company Facts landing page of their website boasts of generating over $1 billion in revenue per year; providing more than 30 billion records online; and having test results for over 20 million people in the World's largest consumer DNA network that the company owns. So, yes, it's big - and as a library customer, you have access to some of Ancestry.com's major features through the Beaufort County Library's subscription to Ancestry Library Edition. 

Borrowing blatantly from a FamilyTree e-mail newsletter article by Gena Philibert-Ortega that just arrived in my in-box, here are a few tips to get started using Ancestry Library Edition at home in an efficient and effective (and I hope, successful) manner. 

1. Take advantage of the CARD CATALOG. The card catalog lists every database on ALE - which as I am writing this post contains 10,715 databases. (The number of databases tomorrow could be even higher as ALE is a dynamic website.) 

Though the landing page for ALE forces you to plug in a name, any name, into the search box, I want you to approach ALE not like the television ads suggest but as a more experienced researcher would. I want you to choose the "SEARCH" tab next to the Ancestry Library logo on the tool bar. 

Open the "SEARCH" tab and select "CARD CATALOG" from the drop-down box. Now you can see the titles of all 10,715 databases found in ALE. While you can search the Card Catalog by keyword or title by using the search boxes on the left side, also note that on the right side at the top of the results list, you can also sort the full results list by Database Title, Date Updated, Date Added or Record Count. Recently added databases are indicated by a "NEW" icon; recently updated databases are indicated by a "UPDATED" icon.

Going back to the options in the left column on the "CARD CATALOG" landing page, you can filter results lists by COLLECTION type; by LOCATION; by DATE (usually in centuries or decades) and by LANGUAGE (the default for ALE is English). In other words, there are a lot of options to consider when designing your search for information and records about your forebearers. 

2. Sometimes defer searching for your ancestors by name within an ALE database. 

A second key point that Ms. Philibert-Ortega makes is that not all Ancestry.com - and by extension, ALE - databases are searchable by name. For example, when you filter the 10,715 databases in ALE by COLLECTION type and limit to "PICTURES", you discover 39 PICTURES databases, some of which allow searching by a person's name and some which do not allow searching by a person's name. The school yearbooks included do allow searching by a person's name whereas the historical postcard collections listed do not. The landing page for each of the PICTURES databases indicates what type of search is allowed. 

If you're disappointed in the smaller number of databases provided through ALE in comparison with all that come with a personal subscription to Ancestry.com, just let me remind you that the Library pays for you to use ALE at home for free as long as you have a valid Beaufort County Library card and the proper password. (Need a Library card? No problem. Details on who is eligible and how to get one are on the Library's website.) Advancing my argument even further, the amount of your tax money that goes towards providing County Library services of all kinds per year would barely pay for one month of individual access to Ancestry.com. (Public libraries are so great!!!) What a deal home access to ALE is for you - all courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fine folks at ProQuest! Available while home access remains in effect.

Reminder: Due to continuing staff shortage and the small physical space in the public area of the Research Room, limited access to the Research Room will continue into the foreseeable future. (It takes time to select and train a new assistant.) All arrangements must be made - and confirmed - in advance of the proposed date for the appointment. No arrangements can be made or confirmed outside of  business hours as staff are not available 24/7/365 to respond to customer inquiries. Under the present circumstances, we regret that walk-in researchers and same-day appointments cannot be accepted.  Contact information is provided in the image.

Looking ahead: Please pencil into your calendar that the Library - and the BDC - will observe Independence Day on Monday, July 5th. All library units, including the Beaufort District Collection, will be closed on Monday, July 5th. 

Tip: Contact a Local

One of my favorite family history advisors, Michael John Neill writes the Genealogy Tip of the Day blog. His advice is almost always spot on. For example, a blog post back on September 27, 2018 suggests that one should "Contact a Local" to keep you from overlooking something important, locate additional sources, or get insights into how things are done or arranged in a particular locale.  Here's his solid piece of advice:

Contact a Local

No matter how long you’ve researched and how adept you are at locating, interpreting, and understanding records, it is always a good idea to communicate with someone familiar with the resources in a location where you’ve never done research before. That “new” county may organize materials in a slightly different fashion, have a finding aid you’ve never encountered, or have other “issues” with their records that may hinder your research if you are unaware of them.

That local may know things about the location that are not “common” knowledge, be aware of others who could be able to assist you, and may give you suggestions on navigating the materials in their local area. It’s a mistake to assume that just because you are familiar with records in some locations, that you’ll know everything about them everywhere.

A good way to stumble on your genealogical research path is to not realize you may need a new map or area guide when your research moves to a new location.

Now he could have been writing about a local being any person you might meet in a locale where your ancestors once lived, but that isn't always the best strategy for learning in an efficient, time sensitive manner about a particular locale's records. The random local person you meet on the street may know diddley-squat about local records. Therefore, I strongly encourage every family historian to ask at the public library and/or historical society about local records first and in advance of any visit you might be planning to the area. Lots of local archives are lightly staffed so unexpected closures can occur. Some archives operate on an intermittent basis or rely upon volunteers who may not keep the archives open on consistent and regular hours. Some archives in academic institutions follow the academic calendar and may be closed or have restricted hours during term breaks. Some archives are only accessible by advance arrangements. Some major archives, such as the South Caroliniana Library and the Georgia Historical Society, are currently being remodeled and updated so access to their respective collections can be limited or not allowed at the present time.  In other words, it is always better to contact the local(s) ahead of time to get the lay of the land, as it were. 

For example, the Research Room will be closed at lunchtime on Tuesday, August 13th due to staff shortage. Visit us 9 AM to Noon, go grab a bite to eat, and return at 1 PM to continue your research. The room will close at 5 PM as per usual. 

 

If you would like to learn about the breadth, scope, arrangement, and whereabouts of records relating to Beaufort, Hampton, and Jasper Counties in South Carolina, contact us: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468.  

Tips Before Traveling to Do Research

Traveling to conduct family history investigations is growing so much that there are even web pages about how to "Plan Your Genealogy Vacation."

Here are a few tips before you make the commitment to travel to undertake family history research

1. Have you contacted the facility to a) make sure that they have the material you seek and b) will be open when you want to visit?  

2. Have you asked if there are some particular days to avoid? [I always tell customers not to come during Water Festival. Parking downtown is a bear on most days but it's particularly tough when there are festivals in the Waterfront Park.]

3. Are you clear on any scheduled adjustments to the usual an customary schedule? [Holidays, lunchtime closures for days when there isn't enough staff to cover the desk, hurricane threats, etc.]

4. Have you asked about fees for photocopying items or photographing items from the collections?

5. Do you have all the necessary data you need to bring to make the visit productive? I can't tell you how many people have shown up through the years without the notebook that actually has the details so necessary in tracking down ancestors. One really needs a printed or handwritten of list of people names and dates to get started. Leaving that at home or in the motel room doesn't help the person on staff help you as well as we might have done if you just brought the list with you.

A good place to find a plan is "10 Tips for Planning a Genealogy Research Trip" by Lisa A. Alzo in Family Tree Magazine. CNN offers some timely "Family Tree Travel: How to Create your Own Journey into the Past" advice as well.  

Heads up #1: The BDC will be running short of staff for June and perhaps into July. We have 2.5 people to cover 40 hours and one of those people will be out for all of June. If someone gets sick or a family member dies or a hurricane threatens, adjustments may occur without a lot of notice. Be sure to contact us before you finalize your plans to visit our Research Room - just in case we have to adjust our usual and customary schedule: 843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net. If the entire Library system is affected notices will be posted on the Library's homepage: https://www.BeaufortCountyLibrary.org.

Heads up #2: All units of the Beaufort County Library will be closed on Monday, May 27th for Memorial Day. You'll surely not want to plan to visit our Research Room that day!