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SEARCH THE ARCHIVES CATALOG
  1. Select your search options.
  2. Enter your search terms into any of the search boxes below.  (Search Tips, Types of Searches)
Level of detail of search:
Display Options:
Keyword:(searches across all fields)
  examples: “african americans” veterans tourism
  
Subject:
  examples: "mental health" columbia “ninety six” teachers auditing
  
Title:
  examples: "estate papers" minutes “sessions rolls”
  
Creator:
  examples: "dept of corrections" “abbeville county” “marion, francis” "middleton family”
  
Personal name:
 examples: "mills, robert" "richards, john" “pate, mary”
  
Corporate/conference name:
  examples: “constitutional convention” “education study committee” “southern governor’s conference”
  
Genre/form
  examples: deeds photographs “annual reports” citizenship papers”
  
Date/date range
  examples: 1860 to 1880 1941
  
Series number
"L 01001"  "L1001001"  "S 102001"  "B 800101"  C 700001"  F 600210"  P 900001"  "O 800210"
Important: Use quotation marks and proper formatting and spacing.
Search Tips
  • Use AND, OR, NOT, and ( ) to narrow or broaden your search:
    • “expenditures, public” and “county finances” [narrows search to records having both terms]
    • "political ethics" or "misconduct in office" [broadens search to records having either term]
    • marriage not license [narrows search to records having the first term but not the second]
    • (forest or parks) and recreation [retrieves records with either of the parenthetical terms and the term outside the parentheses]
  • Use * to truncate and search varying forms of a word:
    • transport* (will search transport, transporting, transportation, etc.)
  • If you enter terms into more than one box, the search will retrieve records matching both search terms.
  • To search a date range, use "to" between the beginning and ending dates.
Types of Searches
Keyword - any type of term (name, subject, title, word in a note field, etc.) found in any field of the catalog record
Subject - topical areas (topics, places, occupations, functions, etc.) covered by records in the series or record group
Title - the name or variant name of a series, record group, container, file folder, or item
Creator - state agency, county, municipality, organization or person that created or received and maintained the series
Personal name - name of an individual or family
Corporate/conference name - name of any government, government agency or office, institution, religious body or church, private organization, or conference
Genre/form - physical or intellectual form of records (deeds, will, photographs, maps, diaries)
Date/date range - a year or range of years covered by the records
Series number - unique indentification number assigned to each series or record group. There are 8 broad categories or collections of records, each with a different letter designation. Use the correct spacing between the letters when searching by series number
  • B 800100 (one space)      British Records
  • C 700001 (one space)      Confederate Records
  • F 602306 (one space)      Federal Records
  • L  01001 (two spaces)     County Records
  • L1027001 (no space)       Municipal Records
  • O 800201 (one space)      Other Governments
  • P 900176 (one space)      Private Records
  • S 165015 (one space)      State Records

Copyright 2014 @ South Carolina Department of Archives and History

This online catalog has been made possible by Library Services and Technology Act funds administered by

the: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the South Carolina State Library

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