About the Genealogy Resources

From Finding Aids to Research Guides, the South Carolina Room staff have amassed a collection of resources for everyone from novices to old pros digging into genealogy. The resources include microfilmed sets of primary documents such as probate or land records.

We've broken out the Finding Aids and Research Guides into three primary areas: Life & Death Records, War Records, and City and Land Records. Each record includes a PDF version for easy download and printing.

If you're just getting started on your search, it may be helpful to begins with our South Carolina Genealogy Guides and the General Works for genealogical research.

First steps in genealogy

This guide will assist genealogy beginners in understanding how to conduct research, and what kinds of records exist for conducting American family genealogies. The guide includes a list of online resources, helpful tips, and a general overview of what records exist and how they can be applied to genealogical research.

Get started with the step-by-step guide from CCPL.

Glossary of land terms

Researchers who are using land records or conducting property research will find simple definitions for legal terms and types of sources found in everywhere, as well as those specific to South Carolina.

Check out the glossary.

Source material at CCPL

This guide highlights the wide array of resources available at the Charleston County Public Library for historical or genealogical research. It lists the run dates of our microfilmed periodicals, availability of phone books and city directories, and birth and death records for the City of Charleston, as well as an introduction to probate and service records in the library’s holdings.

Check out the list of source materials at CCPL.

Charleston Archive and Charleston Time Machine

SC History - Life and Death Records

SC History - War Records

SC History - City Land Records