Land & Property Records
Grants, plats, deeds, and boundary language that place families on the ground.
Land records are often the most continuous SC family evidence: colonial grants and plats, later deeds in Register of Mesne Conveyance (RMC) / ROD offices, mortgages, and plats attached to estates.
Tips
- Abstract every name in a deed—grantor, grantee, witnesses, adjoining owners.
- Follow metes-and-bounds neighbors across decades.
- Watch for district/county name changes in the legal description.
- Women’s dower releases can prove marriages and survival.
Common questions
Where are pre-1785 South Carolina deeds found?
Often in central Charleston colonial recording series at SCDAH, not only in the modern county ROD. Confirm parent districts for later freeholders.
What should I plot besides the surname?
Watercourses, plantation or tract names, and neighboring landowners. Place names often outlast courthouse labels.