June 22-24 Intensive Research in Abbeville, South Carolina

One of the historic photos found in the excellent Abbeville Library,
genealogy section. Eureka Hotel ca. 1912.

After my quick tour of the city I headed for the county administration building that houses the probate records. This was a truly unremarkable two-story building with ample parking and a friendly guard at the front desk. After having visited a few county courthouses in search of genealogical information I’ve been exposed to a range of situations. In Abbeville they turn you loose with their historic records and allowed me to handle them without protective gloves and to use my scanner or camera to make copies. Instead of being stored flat in folders these documents were still folded into the same small packets that they had been when they were created +/-200 years ago. A few of the documents I wanted to copy were in multiple pieces – not surprisingly. But by-in-large they were intact. As I handled each item I did wear gloves anyway and took extreme care to not compromise their frail condition.

Historically packets of probate documents were folded to
this uniform size and shape. Some counties have unfolded and
store them flat. In Abbeville they have remained
folded  for +/- 200 years

From Joanna McGehee’s will I had 3 new family names to follow up on – McGehee, Waller, and Brooks + Gaines. So I check the index for all four names and decided to copy everything that was prior to and from the time period when Joanna Gaines lived in Abbeville. I’m guessing that most of the people with these names that were living in Abbeville at that time are related in some way. There were 17 Brooks, 16 Wallers, 15 Gaines and thankfully only 3 McGehees.

What was included in each packet varied a lot. The packet of a minor might only include a single page while an adult who had heirs, land, and property might include dozens of pages. I copied every page of every will because that is where the names of heirs are listed. I also copied the Sale Bill because the names of the persons who purchased the property are noted and often these are relatives. If the deceased is a married man who did not write a will that named his wife the Sale Bill may provide a good clue – if three quarters of the items in the estate are purchased by one woman there is a very good chance she was his wife. 

This is the Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Waller, my 3rd
Great Grandfather, written in 1804

Petitions, bonds, guardianship papers, letters of testamentary, inventories, appraisals, returns (claims against the estate), accountings of expenses and notices in newspapers are all other documents that may be in these packets. Needless to say, at the end of each day I left with hundreds of scans to process. Each evening I tried to sort through what I’d collected that day and assign a name to each set of documents. Then I would upload everything to Amazon Prime for safe keeping at times when I had an internet connection.  

I spent three+ days doing intensive research in Abbeville. My mornings were spent in the County office and the afternoons at the Abbeville Library that had an excellent genealogy collection. I drove around town photographing their historic buildings, searched without success for the Long View cemetery, and visited their Chamber of Commerce that had a small collection of historic and genealogy books. I liked Abbeville a lot and was reluctant to leave but by the time I headed north I’d taken 92 photographs of the town and scanned 1214 pages of documents and historic photos.

The condition of documents varies. Let this be
a reminder not to use scotch tape to attempt to
preserve important papers.

Of course I have not processed all this new information – it will probably take a few years to do so. So, I don’t yet know exactly how many other new ancestors I’ll discover once I sort all this out. I can tell you that I’ve been communicating with two of my second cousins, who share my passion for family history, and between what I’ve found and what Laine Lawrence has tapped into online she thinks she’s gotten us back to a 5^th great grandfather on the Waller line.

In addition to firmly identifying Joanna Gaines’s parents as Hiram Gaines and Hulda Waller (3^rd great grandparents), I feel confident that Benjamin Waller was my 4^th great grandfather and, based on a marriage record, his wife was Joanna Thompson – they married before 1800. We have the names of their 6 children. I suspect Hiram’s father was Henry Gaines but I have not proved that yet and don’t know is mother’s name. I sorted out that Joanna McGehee was married to Charles McGehee. A marriage record I found in Abbeville shows Charles marrying Joanna Watson Thompson before 1815. Finally, two additional McGehee’s are identified in the probate documents for Charles McGehee’s. They are Charlotte McGehee and John McGehee. No doubt Charlotte and John are related but I’m not sure how yet. All this adds 14 additional ancestors (total of 23) that I had not previously known about prior to this trip. 

Livery stable built in 1820. This building existed at the time
the Hiram Gaines family lived in Abbeville.

One of a series of historic murals housed in the Chamber of
Commerce painted by Wilbur Kurtz. This one depicts what
Abbeville may have looked like when Joanna Gaines lived there.

This and the next 3 photos illustrate more of Abbeville's
outstanding collection of anti bellum architecture

This 1885 Sacred Heart Catholic Church has
striking architecture

Trinity Curch houses a Baker organ, stain glass windows from
England and a Boxwood Garden designed by Rev. Benjamin
Johnson in 1859.

In 1872 Abbeville suffered a fire that destroyed most of their
downtown and historic records. Fortunately, researchers have
sought alternate sources such as Larry Pursley who compiled
10,600 marriage records from historic newspapers that survived.

Unusual black with orange cricket seen in
the Trinity Church Cemetery