Using the Summary Guide to County Records
- Select Search the Summary Guide to County Records to link to an alphabetical listing
- Choose the letter corresponding to the beginning letter of the county, district, or parish to link to an alphabetical list of the entities for that letter
- Example: Chose
A for Abbeville County;
N for Ninety-Six District; or
S for St. Philip's and St. Michael's Parishes
- Records are listed under the county of origin or county inheriting the records from a predecessor county.
- Records listed under districts are those whose dates do not carry forward into successor jurisdictions or when the series could not be suitably divided into a successor jurisdictional unit.
- Detailed information on the formation of counties is provided online in
Maps Tracing the Formation of Counties in South Carolina
and in the publication, "The Formation of Counties in South Carolina"
- Select the county, district, or parish name to link to the listing of record series for that entity
- In most instances, records are further divided into subgroups, which correspond to the offices, courts, or administrative units who created, inherited, or received the record on deposit. Some units represented are now defunct.
- Within each subgroup, records are listed numerically by series or call number
- Certain
terms and abbreviations
occur in the series entries
- Brief information on the date of formation and significant records destroyed is also provided. Further information on counties with significant destruction of records is provided in the publication,
"Destroyed County Records in South Carolina, 1785-1872"
- Each series entry is composed of the:
- series/call number
- name of the records creator (county, district, or parish, and, where applicable, the office, court, or administrative unit)
- title of the record series
- inclusive date span of the series (i.e., the earliest date and the latest date represented in the series)
- bulk dates, where applicable (time period into which most of the records fall)
- quantity of the series (amount of cubic feet, volumes, microfilm reels, or other unit)
- statement of restriction on use or terms governing access of the series
- Access to some types of media requires prior notice
- For container listings, see
SCArchCat,
the online catalog to our holdings which also gives additional information for
many series and allows searching by keyword, subjects, and titles at each level
(series, record group, container/folder, or item) or all levels combined
- Researchers interested in obtaining more information about record series should contact the State Archives and identify the series/call number and series title when making an inquiry