Genealogy Blogs and SC updates

Genealogy blogs can be a great tool for keeping up to date with new materials, digitization and interesting news. There are a few that I check regularly.

Genealogy Books - http://www.genealogyandfamilyhistory.com: I like this site because, for whatever reason, genealogy books are not always reviewed in the main publications we use for collection development. I have to constantly check Ancestry Magazine, Everton's and other magazines to see what new publications are coming out. This site helps.

Genealogy Librarian - http://genlibrarian.blogspot.com/: Of course, I have to visit a site with librarian in the title. No matter what, we are public servants and it is helpful to see what our colleagues are doing but it is good for the general public to see what we are doing, also, so take a look at it.

Genealogy Reference-http://basicsofgenealogyreference.blogspot.com/: This site is from Jack Simpson, Curator of the Newberry Library in Chicago. It is a beautiful facility. I visited it during an American Library Association conference a few years ago. On a lark, I looked for information on some Illinois ancestors and I found a goldmine. There was a book I read, not too long ago, called the Time Travelor's Wife that took place in Newberry Library. It was a fun read, actually great for summertime reading.

NEW NEWS: The University of South Carolina was recently awarded a grant to digitize a selection of South Carolina newspapers from 1860-1922. Here is the link for the press release but i have also linked this post's title to it: http://www.sc.edu/news/newsarticle.php?nid=315.

Kate Boyd asked me about a year ago to be on the advisory board for this project. I am looking forward to having input on what gets digitized. So more information is on the virtual horizon. Hooray!

Online indexes clean-up

The barometric pressure is going haywire and there is an 80% chance of rain today so it seemed a good day to do some blog house-cleaning. I went through all the online index links and checked their status. I did make some important changes that I want to share with everyone.

1. I deleted the online obituary index links for Florence and Horry Counties. I talked with Florence Public Library about their status. They told me that the index is down and they are not sure if or when it is going back up. The indexes are still available in-house. Contact them and they can still PDF an obit to you. The link for the SC Room is: http://www.florencelibrary.org/scroom.html. (Between you and I they also said that they will e-mail copies of SC death certificates at no charge.)
While I haven't heard anything officially from Horry County I heard from a patron that there is some sort of dispute over their obituary index. It has been offline for a long time and I am just removing it from the list. If and when I hear something concrete I will let you all know.

2. The links for Greenville have been updated to include their obituary index and news index. They are doing an awesome job with their indexing project.

There...it feels good to have a tidy little blog house.

National Genealogical Conference

Good morning everyone. Here I am at the National Genealogical Conference in Raleigh, NC. Tuesday, Proquest (our vendor for Ancestry Library Edition and HeritageQuest), sponsored a day long session for librarians (it was great...many thanks). Two of the sessions introduced brand new sites that were put together in time for this conference. I am getting them to you pronto so you can have a heads up. They are very new so expect some quirks.

The first site is a collaboration between the NC State Library and the NC State Archive. They have digitized 200+ family bibles. I believe they said that the first batch of bibles had to cover a span of at least 200 years so they should be awesome. It just went live Friday. Each record has a comment window and a window for tagging. They may be adding more bibles so keep checking back. http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/dimp/digital/ncfamilyrecords/about.html

Next, the North Carolina State University Library at Chapel Hill has digitized the 30 volumes of the NC Colonial State Records. This will be a great site for revolutionary war sources. It is still in the beta phase but they have it going and would appreciate your comments.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/

York County History Search

A link has been added to a new obituary database from York County Library (Rock Hill area). They have also built a vertical file database that has digitized images. It very impressive and exciting to have a new online database. South Carolina public libraries are doing so much for genealogists. We add new content daily. We really don't get enough credit for being research institutions. We are about access not preservation and honestly, I think, we should the first stop for genealogists is South Carolina.

South Carolina Families Online

Worrying about South Carolina Family Histories that are online have been a reoccuring problem for me. There is alot online and I can't keep it all in my head. I am resolved to do something about it so I have added a new section to this blog for online family histories. If you want to tell me one to add please do, otherwise, I will add them as I find them or as I remember to add them. :)

That is a simple fix. A much harder fix is to find a place for all the information that researchers are putting in databases on their computers. I personally know patrons with hundreds of thousands pieces of data on their computers. The chances of having these massive amounts of data published in print are slim. We need a website to store and search all these databases. Libraries seem to be unaware or like mine we are aware but don't have enough storage for these databases.

However, if the information is in excel we might be able to put them in our Community Resources database. Let me think (re:worry) about it somemore...

Researching Your Home

This morning I spent an hour with at the Richland County Register of Deeds (ROD) office learning about the resources they have for patrons researching the history of their homes.

RCPL will have a program on this topic on May 14th so I wanted some background about other resources in the county for patrons.

The ROD is located in the Richland County Courthouse at 1701 Main St. They are right behind the security gates. They have a large facility with lots of microfilm machines. Deeds, mortgages, releases, plats, tax liens, and UCC filings are recorded at this office. If a patron is interested in finding out when additions or improvements were made to the property then they should go to the Hampton Street permit offices.

The first step in locating a deed is to have the Deed Book and Page number. There is a computer at the ROD that can access that information or patrons can go to the online Property Value & Tax Assessment Inquiry at www.richlandonline.com. Copy down the tax number also. That can be used to locate a deed if there is a snafu.

If a property owner has opted out of the online inquiry then a visit to the ROD is necessary. They can opt out of the online search but they can't opt out from having their information publicly available at ROD.

The next step is to locate the deed with the deed number. If the Deed Book/Page number starts with a "R" then the deed is on the computer. If the number starts with a "D" then the deed is on microfilm. With the address I was using I could see the first deed on the computer but the farther back I went the more likely the deed would be on microfilm.

The ROD is a public records office so they take customer service very seriously. They are there to assist. I was very impressed with their public service attitude.

Miscellaneous:
* Copies are fifty cents
* 11/11/1911 is a default date. It means they don't know when the property closed.
* ROD is currently digitizing deeds. They hope to have them available on their website by the end of the summer.
*RCPL Local History Room has tax records for Richland County. The tax records can tell when a house was built. There is cross referencing but if you have the tax number then it is one less hefty tome you have to lift.

Church Histories

I want them! Do you live in South Carolina? Do you have a favorite South Carolina church? Please send me or e-mail me your churches history. It doesn't have to be a book. A text document is great.

We have many church histories in the Richland County Public Library Local History Room but I know there many we don't have. It would be wonderful to have as many as we can at our library. There is a lot of historical research taking place and SC churches play a big role in many areas.

Richland County Public Library
1043 Assembly St.
Columbia, SC 29201
attn: Local History

or: dbloom@myrcpl.com

Thanks!!!