South Carolina Genealogy

There’s a new site that’s dedicated to the genealogy of African Americans of the Lowcountry. The site is sponsored by the Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, SC and will be publishing records online of the African American slaves of plantations from the traditional rice growing areas of the low country of South Carolina, Georgia and even Northern Florida. (Covering the area of Gullah/Geechee culture.) The site is called LowCountry Africana. They have ambitious goals it appears, their first project will be putting online reconstructed family histories of the slaves of the Drayton family plantations.

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Popularity: 77% [?]

The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg, SC had a great story this past month of an exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum. The exhibit is called “Finding Priscilla’s Children” and focuses on the life of a slave child named Priscilla that was taken from Sierra Leone and at the age of 10 years old in 1756, sold at auction to Elias Ball, a South Carolina rice planter.

She died at 65 and was survived by 10 children….

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Popularity: 42% [?]

Sometimes it’s easy to become spoiled. In researching my (white) ancestors, it is easily forgotten how much more challenging genealogy research might be if my ancestors were from Africa and not Europe. Of course, race divided our country very early on and in some ways it’s as clear in visiting Charleston’s old Slave Market as anywhere in the country. That much said, African American ancestry research can be very rewarding. Here’s a great example…

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Popularity: 32% [?]