“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 Sumter 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.”

• Clemson’s Cooperative Extension Service Photographs 1880-1979 “The physical collection consists of more than 11,000 positive and negative images produced by the Cooperative Extension Service and South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station from the 1920s until the 1970s. A few images made before 1930 were not produced by the Service but were acquired and maintained with the collection.”

• 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 “Forward Together is a multiple-venue project, developed by a consortium of historical and educational institutions, that focuses on the participation of South Carolina during World War I and its effects on the state.”

• 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) …”

• Inventory of (SC) Church Archives, 1937-1939 “A historical records survey known as the Inventory of Church Archives was completed by W.P.A. workers between 1937 and 1939. The original survey sheets are held in the Manuscripts Division of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia. In 1980, the collection was microfilmed by the South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, through a …”

• Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1911-1985) Papers, 1929-2003 “Newman was a Methodist pastor, civil rights activist, and entrepreneur. A leading figure in the Civil Rights movement in South Carolina, he helped organize the Orangeburg branch of the NAACP in 1943, helped found the Progressive Democratic Party, and served the South Carolina NAACP as state field director from 1960 to 1969.”

• Joseph A. De Laine Papers, 1918-2000 “This core unit of three hundred fifty items-two hundred sixty-two manuscripts (letters, speeches, reports, narratives, and affidavits) and miscellaneous printed artifacts (news clippings, programs, booklets), and eighty-eight photographs-added to the papers of the late Joseph Armstrong De Laine (1898-1974) covers chiefly the period from 1942, when he submitted his annual report as secretary of the…”

•  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.”

• Morris College Digital Collections; Yearbooks of South Carolina “The Archives of the Morris College Richardson-Johnson Learning Resources Center chronicle over one hundred years of the college’s history through documents, convention publications, photographs, catalogs, alumni materials, videos and publications. The Morris College Digital Collections presented here include yearbooks and other college publications documenting the history of the institution.”

• Negro Travelers’ Greenbook, 1956 “The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a travel guide series published from 1936 to 1964 by Victor H. Green. It was intended to provide African American motorists and tourists with the information necessary to board, dine, and sightsee comfortably and safely during the era of segregation.”

• 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”

• Sketch of Company K, 23rd South Carolina Volunteers “Andrews, with the assistance of some of his fellow soldiers, recalls the Company’s combat experiences during the second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia (1862; also called Second Manassas) and the siege of Petersburg, Virginia (1864-1865), as well as his own capture and imprisonment at Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates in Maryland following the Battle…”

• 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 Library Buildings Collection

• 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