Monday, May 24, 2010

"Give Me Your Poor..."

Although I started off my local history journey as an amateur family history researcher, I've long since shifted my focus away from genealogy toward broader place and social histories. They overlap in many instances and for both patrons and my personal interest, I still occasionally go barking up the proverbial family tree, but for the most part these days, I stick to the bigger picture histories.

Every once in a while, though, newly discovered resources send me into a fit of genealogical epilepsy. That recently happened when I came across a dusty, unlabeled ledger that contained the minutes for the Spartanburg County Commissioners of the Poor from 1796 to 1827.

This ledger had been missing since the WPA era when a rough transcription was apparently made and the original vanished either from the state archives (where the transcription resides) or the Spartanburg County Courthouse. Its intervening history remains unknown. I found it in the history museum archives, but it had not been processed. What appears to be part of a WPA transcription form marked a page in the ledger. It was as if some transcriber stopped, put the book down, and never picked it up again.

There are several reasons this ledger could be particularly useful for family historians with a connection to Spartanburg County. The first has to do with its age. As you can imagine, there really aren't too many records from the late 18th and early 19th century in this part of the state. Courthouse records, military pension records, church records, the occasional family bible, and woefully inadequate census records form nearly the extent of the primary resources available. Combine the scarcity of resources overall with a documentary bias toward social elites (after all, wealthy landowners leave far more records than the forgotten, illiterate poor) and what you have is virtually no information for the small scale farmers and sharecroppers of that time period. From my own experience in tracing my family's history, some of those poorer families just disappear into the silence as you try to trace them further back. There just aren't records to show what their names were or that they were even alive.

This ledger, on the other hand, is focused on the destitute and the wealthier individuals and families that oversaw their well-being. The commission operated by distributing funds to folks who petitioned the commission on behalf of a neighbor who could not take care of him- or herself either because of old age, abandonment, the death of a family member, or some other extenuating circumstance. The commission then awarded the money for as long as the individual needed assistance. Essentially, it was the older form of welfare, and it's all documented here.

I hope to be able to browse through it soon and make it more accessible to patrons. These are truly the forgotten, and I hope this ledger can help reunite them with their families today.

6 comments:

AnneG said...

Thank you so much for this announcement -this is incredibly exciting. I come from several families who lived in Spartanburg District at the time of the Revolution up to about 1810. They were never wealthy and not well represented in other court documents, so may appear in this ledger. But what is more exciting is the thought that manuscript documents from that time have survived to this day. Would love to know the condition of the ledger pages.

fcspatti said...

This is very exciting my Wiggins family was in Spartanburg during that time. Have never been able to find much information other than one census record in 1850 and a reference to a marriage date just before the current available information started. There is hope!!!

Sharon said...

Any chance you'd check for my ancestors? They were there until 1830 census for sure. The surnames are Attaway and Draper.

bless their hearts mom said...

this is so GREAT- totally understand the epilepsy comment!

Are you going to take names for look ups?

Anonymous said...

Wow! Are there plans to transcribe the ledger and make the minutes available online? I have contact with several researchers of Pryor/Prior families who migrated to TN from SC, just don't know where. Any morsel of information would help!

Patti said...

This is an awesome find, both in its historical context and in the help and clues it may provide for those who are doing family history research. I have been doing working on my Martindale line in/near the area in that time frame with little luck. I do know they were not well off and at one point lost everything to a house fire. I would love to search this as it becomes available. This really seems to be a historical treasure.