Step 1:  Study Geopolitical History

Sourth Carolina originally consisted of four counties:  Berkeley, 
Colleton, Craven, and Granville.  They served only as divisions for 
assigning and electing representatives, organizing the militia, locating 
the residences of magistrates, and (in a very general way) determining 
where land grants lay.  These original counties did not create local 
records, and they ceased to exist when the Circuit Court Act of 1769 
created seven political districts that confusingly overlapped the old 
county lines:  Beaufort (roughly old Granville), Camden (northwest part 
of Old Craven). Charleston (part of old Colleton and Berkeley), Cheraw 
(northeast part of old Craven), Georgetown (southern part of old 
Craven), Ninety-Six (the northern extreme of Granville, Colleton, and 
Berkeley), and Orangeburg (the middle range of old Granville, Colleton, 
and Berkeley).

....

Step 2:  Learn the land-grant process

The first titles to South Carolina's lands, wherever they lay, were 
dispensed by the provincial government at Charleston, which allotted 
headrights (variously called family rights) to encourage settlement.  
Prior to 1756, the basic headright was 50 acres per head of household, 
with an additional 50 per household member.  Beginning about 6 April 
1756, the allotment was raised to 100 acres per family head, with 50 
additional per member.  A "family member" might be wife, child, other 
relative, indentured servant, or slave.  And a householder did not have 
to request or accept all acres for which he or she was eligible.  A 
fully executed grant involved a four-step process:

Petition:  Colonial land laws required settlers to appear in person 
before the provincial council, sitting at Charleston.  They were to 
identify themselves, specify the number of acres sought, make a general 
statement, regarding the number and type of dependents for whom they 
claimed the acreage, and cite the location they preferred.  
Occasionally, a petitioner gave other useful information-such as his 
prior residence, his age, or the names and ages of his spouse and 
children.

Warrant:  If the council approved the request, it issued a warrant 
(generally on the same day as the petition) for the requested land.

Survey and Plat:  It was the responsibility of the petitioner to take 
the warrant to the colony's surveyor or one of his deputies.  That 
person was to lay off the specified acres and then prepare a plat 
(scaled drawing, showing measurements and boundary markers).  The 
surveyor's remarks generally cite both the survey date and the precept 
or order date (usually the date of the petition or the warrant). 
(Charlotte's note:  these also show adjoining land owners)

Grant:  Upon completion of the survey, the grantee was to return the 
plat to the grant office, after which the grant was officially made.  
Most grantees completed this step, although many did not.  Because the 
law exempted grantees from paying quitrents for two years after the date 
of the grant (ten years in the case of immigrants), many up-country 
settlers-being far removed from the oversight of the grant office - 
considered it expedient to delay the final paperwork as long as 
possible.

Notwithstanding the district-court system that was legislated in 1769, 
courthouses did not materialize for years in the backcountry.  
Meanwhile, all official transactions had to be filed at Charleston or 
not at all.  Thus, once outlying land had been granted, subsequent 
transfers between individuals usually went unrecorded.  Before the 
grantee or a new owner was entered on the colony's quitrent rolls, 
however, he or his representative was to create a fourth type of record:

Memorial:  In legal terms, a memorial is a summation or a presentation 
of facts.  South Carolina's land memorials, dating 1731-75, are an 
account of a tract's chain of title from the time the original grant.  
That account was generally made orally under oath, but recorded.  When 
and where other records exist to test the vlaidity of the memorials, 
they generally prove accurate-but errors are by no means rare.

The COM index includes the plats, grants, and memorials.  The original 
documents can be located inthe archives itself, by using the "entry 
numbers" that the COM Index provides.  However, that datbase does not 
index the petitions fromt he council journals.  To locate a given 
petition, one must (a) use the COM Index to locate a plat, (b) note the 
precept or warrant date given on the plat, (c) then go to the council 
journals for entries of that date.  The effort is wroth it.  Considering 
the dearth of probate records for the rural districts, the land-grant 
paperwork and related memorials have become the "proof" by which 
genalogists commonly link generations of early South Carolina Families.


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