“The South Carolina Digital Library provides free access to historic materials, such as photographs, manuscripts, journals, books, oral histories, objects, etc. illustrating the history and culture of South Carolina from over 40 cultural heritage institutions across the state. Over 200,000 items have been added so far.”

Free Laurens County South Carolina genealogy collections online include:

• Broadsides from the Colonial Era to the Present “Broadsides is a virtual collection of posters from many different collections at the South Caroliniana Library.”

• City Directories of South Carolina, 1905-1922 “The City Directories of South Carolina are housed at the published materials division of USC’s South Caroliniana Library. This collection was digitized by the Internet Archive as part of a project funded by PASCAL in collaboration with LYRASIS, it includes directories from the cities of Anderson, Camden, Chester, Clinton, Gaffney, Laurens, Newberry, Sumter, and Union.”

• Family Bible Records “This collection contains Bible records for a number of South Carolina families. They date from the late 1700s to the late 1900s. The Bible records contain information on births, marriages, deaths, and other notable events that occurred within the families.”

• Forward Together, South Carolina in World War I

• Heyward Album “This Civil War-era photograph album contains cartes-de-visite photographs of members of the S. C. Secession Convention, Confederate and U.S. Governments, officers of the Confederate and U.S. Armies, S.C. governors, and officers of the South Carolina Volunteers 1st Regiment of Rifles.”

• Historical Commission of South Carolina Pamphlets “Topics covered include: agriculture, Civil War regimental histories, education and schools, geology, industry, medicine, Native American tribes, nature, nullification, the Revolutionary War, the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) …”

• Mills Atlas of the State of South Carolina “The 1825 publication of Robert Mills’ Atlas of the State of South Carolina marked an American cartographic first. This volume is the first systematic atlas of any state in the union.”

• Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches in South Carolina, 1785-1920 “This digital collection from the USC’s South Caroliniana Library comprises nearly 400 volumes of Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches in South Carolina between 1785 and 1920.”

• Negro Travelers’ Greenbook, 1956

• One Man’s Dream – William Plumer Jacobs and Clinton, South Carolina “In 1864, a 22-year-old seminary graduate named William Plumer Jacobs arrived in the small town of Clinton to become pastor of the Clinton Presbyterian Church (now the First Presbyterian Church, Clinton). Before his death in 1917, he was to transform the town.”

• Rosenwald Schools of South Carolina, An Oral History Exhibit “The Rosenwald Schools of South Carolina exhibit features as its center the forty-three oral history interviews forming the Tom Crosby Oral History Collection that describe the educational experiences of African Americans in South Carolina 1910s-1970s, most of whom attended Rosenwald schools and/or Allen University.”

• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of South Carolina “Showing cities, farms, forests, reservoirs, coastlines, and other features across the state, the indexes provide a visual overview of each project’s collection of individual aerial photographs”

• South Carolina Aerial Photograph Indexes, 1937-1989 “Spanning five decades, the University of South Carolina’s collection of aerial photograph indexes consists primarily of projects commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture. Showing cities, farms, forests, reservoirs, coastlines, and other features across the state, the indexes provide a visual overview of each project’s collection of individual aerial photographs…”

• South Carolina and the Civil War

• South Carolina Book Collection

• South Carolina Department of Transportation County Road Maps “This is a collection of over 700 South Carolina county road maps from the 1930s to the 1990s, courtesy of the University of South Carolina Thomas Cooper Map Collection.”

• South Carolina Federal Documents Collection “The South Carolina State Library maintains a print collection of federal documents as a member of the Federal Depository Library Program. Many of these documents are about South Carolina or include topics of regional interest.”

• South Carolina in Postcards “This collection contains picture postcards from the early part of the twentieth century that depict scenes across South Carolina. Items in this collection are held by the Greenville County Library System’s South Carolina Room.”

• South Carolina Library Buildings Collection

• South Carolina Public Library History, 1930-1945 “The South Carolina Public Library History, 1930-1945 collection consists of photographs and documents from the archives of the SC State Library. These digital images highlight public libraries, bookmobiles, librarians, and patrons from around the state.”

• South Carolina School Directories “Since 1911 the South Carolina State Department of Education has published a yearly directory of schools in the state.”

• South Carolina State Documents Depository Collection “These publications provide citizens with crucial information about state government, including statistics, annual accountability reports, and data on a wide variety of topics related to the state.”

• South Caroliniana Library Map Collection

• Topographical Maps of South Carolina, 1888-1975

• WPA Federal Writers Project Materials on African American Life in South Carolina

• WPA Photograph Collection