Sunday, October 1, 2017

A New Hope? - Episode IV

As I’m preparing to leave for Las Vegas, I occurs to me that I haven’t wrapped up the South Carolina trip.  I will attempt to do so here.

When last we met, you’ll recall that Mom and I had found Priscilla Cusack’s obituary, but we still needed to prove that the Priscilla Cusack who died in Alabama in 1836 was the same Priscilla Hollis who didn’t die in So. Carolina in 1805.

The obvious prize would be a marriage record between Priscilla Knighton Hollis and Thomas Cusack, but Mom had also seen evidence of a court record where Priscilla Cusack petitioned the court for Thomas Cusack to become the official guardian of her minor children by Berry Hollis.  Either document would tickle us pink.

After a lovely breakfast at Holly’s house, we set out. Now, So. Carolina isn’t all that big, and it appears that we had to go through Columbia to get anywhere we planned on going that day.  As it turned out, we went through Columbia twice that day.... just keep that in mind.

Our first destination was Camden County, because the guardianship document was from the Camden District Court of Equity - neither the Camden District (which was made of up several of today’s counties) nor the Court of Equity (now it’s either criminal or civil, basically) exist today, so that was the first hurdle.

Mom had read that most counties in So. Carolina have an Archives where she figured the really old stuff might be, so we found Camden County’s Archives first. The very nice gentleman there was very helpful, but yet totally not... he advised us that So. Carolina didn't officially start keeping marriage records until 1913 or something, so the only way we’d find any marriage records would be IF someone HAPPENED to go to the courthouse (and why would you if you didn't have to) and swore out an affidavit of marriage.  And either way, those records would be at the courthouse.  Otherwise, they’d be in the State Archives in Columbia.

So we went to the courthouse.  Again, totally amazed by the lack of security at these courthouses.  Having been told that marriage records were a non-starter, we pinned our hopes on the guardianship papers.  We told the lady behind the counter that we were looking for REALLY old guardianship papers.  She said that you had to have a judge’s ok before looking at them.  I asked, “even if everyone involved is DEAD?!”  She said yes, but sent us to talk to ... I don’t recall, let’s call her Sharon.

We told Sharon what we wanted, and she just shook her head... meaning we didn’t have to have a judge’s ok to see those type of records.  But likewise, they didn’t have those records.  They were probably in the State Archive in Columbia.  But she suggested trying Fulton County - which was part of the Camden District.

We hit the Sonic (thank you Sonic app) and hit the road for Fulton.  We stopped at the Courthouse, and was directed to another place.  We went there to be told by the woman behind the counter that “they” didn’t do guardianship before 1973.  Just to be sure, I repeated what she’d said, in question form... “The State of So Carolina didn’t file guardianship before 1973?!”  To which she shook her head and said , “No, ma’am.”

After the door shut behind us, I told Mom that I had two words to say about that.  “Bull Shit.”  I may look like a boob, but I’m actually quite intelligent and I’ve spent more time in courthouses than O.J. Simpson in my 27 years as a paralegal.  I’m not buying it.

So we went across the street to the county library where a very lovely person assisted us, frankly she seemed almost desperate to help us, I don’t think she gets many people coming to her for more than access to the internet these days.  She agreed that probably what all we wanted would be at the State Archives in Columbia, but she helped us with what she could.

Long story short, we found nothing, learned that odds of marriage licenses are nil.  We didn’t have the time to stop at the State Archives in Columbia, so as we drove thru there to our next stop for the evening, we decided that since Holly only lives about an hour away from Columbia, we’d let her go do some visiting at the State Archives!

We spent the night in Spartanburg, SC and then the next day, drove home.  Hopes still high, but slightly diminished.

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