Researching at the Charleston County Public Library, cont.

Before I go off on unpredictable and maddening tangents again [my staff
will gladly accept sympathy cards], let me point out the URL for the
South Carolina Room:

http://www.ccpl.org/scr.html

Please look at this page and its links for valuable information.  From
it, I realize I scratched only a tiny surface of resources.  I hope my
lurking fellow Hugo reunion researchers will speak up and write about
the resources they used.

Here is a listing of the will books I used, from the library's URL
above:

--Inventories, Records of Wills and Miscellaneous Records of       
Charleston County, 1687-1785 (Index available) SCR 929.3  Charleston  
--Records of the Secretary of the Province, 1692-1721 SCR 929.3757
Abstract  
--South Carolina Wills, 1670-1853 or later  SCR 929.3757  
--Wills of Charleston County, South Carolina, 1671-1868.  

Now, these books have indexes, and as stated in the last article, I had
the fortune of having some lookups performed for me ahead of time by
some folks who had access to the indexes.  So I already had on my charts
and computer most of my volume and page numbers, ready to go.

The wills that I accessed--correction, the wills that my COPY SLAVE
accessed--are double-spaced typed transcriptions of the originals.  You
get the words without spending hours deciphering 18th century writing
and language, and you can copy with abandon without guilt of damaging
aging, fragile documents.  [I did not make it to the Probate Office, but
if it is like similar offices elsewhere, the staff in those places would
probably appreciate it if you use these books, too, and you might be
spared the rolled-eye-look and exasperated comments behind your back,
like, "Oh, those genealogists..."]

These wills, of course, are invaluable.  We concentrated on five
surnames for a period from the early 18th to the early 19th centuries,
and probably copied around twenty-five wills.  I will be transcribing
these to the appropriate surname lists.

So, what was I doing while my copy slave was lugging heavy books
[caution, the will books are indeed big and heavy, and the pages are
legal size]?

I was going through the early copies of the South Carolina Gazette
available on microfilm.

[to be continued...]