I also sing the praises of the Edgefield County Library. The staff there were wonderful to me. They will never know how much I appreciated their help and pleasant smiles after leaving the South Carolina Archives in Columbia. On two different occasions, I traveled over 3000 miles round trip to do research in the Archives. I went there with high hopes and came away empty-handed & in tears. I spent more time standing in line waiting for staff to answer my questions on how to search through the catalogs to locate the correct microfilm and then set up the machines to read the films than I did actually getting to scan the microfilm documents. After I finally got them threaded into the machines, things went better. I have arthritis in my hands and had extreme difficulty threading them. I also spent $$$$ trying to copy the microfilm and ended up with black pages and very few productive prints. So you can see, I didn't know what I was doing and I have a feeling that a lot of folks who go there have the same problems. The archives are wonderful for those who are smart enough to operate the system and have good coordination. My choice is to go to the small County libraries. I found valuable information in them. Keep up the good work Edgefield ladies & God bless you. Martha Some thoughts that came to my mind that I have learned in my research of Edgefield Co after reading an exchange between Freda and Helen (following my message) 1) I have found most of the records of Edgefield Co. (and all of the other counties I presume) have been microfilmed and are located at the state archives. If you have multiple folks to look for in several areas, you can find them all in one stop shopping at the state archives. 2) Don't restrict yourself to the Will books. They give the will only and do NOT include the accountings, the petitions against the estate etc that provide wonderful clues as to the relationships of others in the family. Especially if there were two marriages and two sets of children. Wills books make nice copies of the info, but just don't provide all that you need. I make my transcriptions from the original containing all the accountings and often find that they are not the same when read in their entirity as they are in the Abstracts of Wills found in several books. Study it all and make your own conclusion as to the meaning of the info. Also if possible, get probate records for several members of the connecting families.... you will often find surnames and married names of the women in the family that way. 3) Microfilm Index at the state Archives called Probate Records gives wills AND administrative box and package numbers, and then you get the film that has them on it and see everything that was in the box when filmed. This will provide so much more than the will, and lots more if there was an administration with no will. 4) Don't forget equity records - I love it when someone I am looking for got into a dispute with someone else, or made a petition for a portion due to a child of a deceased child. At the State archives these are all in the same area. Don't know where they are in Edgefield. Good place to start is with Carol Well's abstracts. 5) You will NOT get the tenderloving care and help at the State Archives that you will get at Edgefield. I have not researched in Laurens, but most of the smaller individual libraries or archives have always provided me with a more personal touch. Unlike the Edgefield Tompkins library, some of the others are not very knowledgable, but that is certainly NOT true in Edgefield. Tonya and volunteers are very capable of helping folks on their research. Plus they know the area, the churches, the cemeteries, and the old families. 6) the Last time I tried to work on probate records in Edgefield, the probate judge was refusing to let anyone in. Don't know if what ever problem set him off at that time is resolved or not. 7. Tompkins library at Edgefield has lots of family files that have been sent in by others. Like you and I they are bound to contain errors, but they are a start. You will not find any such records like these on the state level that I have ever seen. I am sure that there are other things I should think of to put in here, but those are the ones that come to my mind quickly. Hope they help someone. Billie Jones Camden, SC [email protected]