How to Find Obituaries in The State, Columbia Record and Palmetto Leader

Periodicals Resources

Community Resources

Microfilm Holdings for The State, Columbia Record and Palmetto Leader
In-House Indexes
Online Obituary Index
Online "death date" finding aids
Additonal RCPL in-house death date finding aids: Located in Local History, Main Library
Vital Statistics

Microfilm Holdings for The State, Columbia Record and Palmetto Leader

Located in the RCPL Periodicals Department.

The State: February 18, 1891 – present. Statewide obituaries.
Columbia Record: April 4, 1913 – April 1, 1988. Afternoon paper that published regional obituaries.
The Palmetto Leader: January 10, 1925 – 1966. African American newspaper that published statewide obituaries. There are gaps in the microfilm holdings. Microfilm is located in Local History.

In House Indexes

Located in the RCPL Periodicals Department, Main Library.

Obituary index to The State: 1892 – 1915. An alphabetical index by year. This project is ongoing. Years are added as they become available.
Obituary index to The State for W.W. II servicemen killed in action: 1941-1949. This is an alphabetical index.
Obituary index to The State’s front-page death list: March 1, 1937 – present. These are copies of the front-page death lists.
Obituary index to the Columbia Record: 1979 – April 1, 1988. These are copies of death lists.
Obituary index to The Palmetto Leader: 1925 - 1928. This is an alphabetical index. This project is ongoing. Years are added as they become available.

Online Obituary Indexes

1. Obituaries from The State are indexed online in the NewsBank database. Indexing for obituaries is available from October 1997 – present. Full text obituaries are available from February 28, 1999 - present. (This database is available for RCPL cardholders in the News and Magazines section of Research Tools. NewsBank is also available to any South Carolina student or South Carolina library patron through Discus. A password can be acquired from your local library.)
Beaufort County Newspaper Obituary Index covers the years 1862 – October 31, 1980.
Spartanburg Herald and Herald-Journal Obituary Index covers the years 1910 – the present.
Camden Archives Obituary Index
The Dillon Herald Obituary Index covers obituaries from 1904 – 1939.
The Press and Standard Newspaper Index (Walterboro, SC) is available from 1873 – present.

Online “death date” finding aids

The Social Security Death Index, (also available from Ancestry.com) can help find death dates if the deceased received benefits or the death was reported to Social Security.
The South Carolina Death Indexes are available online from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. These provide a death date for individuals who died in South Carolina from 1915 – up to deaths that occurred fifty years prior to the current year.
Ancestry Library Edition is an online subscription database available for RCPL cardholders at any RCPL location. The most valuable resource for finding death dates are the death indexes for U.S. states. These are found in the Databases section of Ancestry Library Edition under the name of the state (not all states are included). South Carolina Death Index and the Social Security Death Index are available through Ancestry Library Edition.
HeritageQuest is now available to RCPL cardholders from home via our web site. This database provides over 25,000 family and local history books, the complete U.S. Federal Census 1790-1930, PERSI (the Periodical Source Index), a subject index to over 6,500 genealogy and local history periodicals and Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files. Users can search the material in a number of different ways.

Additional RCPL in-house death date finding aids

Located in Local History, Main Library.

Columbia City Directories (1875 – present) – LH 917.57 Col.
Interment records of Elmwood Cemetery - LH 929.5 Int.
Cemetery records of Richland County, South Carolina – LH 929.5 Cen.
McCormick Funeral Home records for the SC State Hospital: African American patients between March 1915 and 1935 and white patients between March 1915 and 1959 – LH 929.5 Tri.
McCormick funeral records, Vols. 2-8 April 1906 through June 1915 – LH 919.5 Tri.
McCormick funeral records. Vol. 2, December 1903 through April 1906 – LH 929.5 Tri.
Olympia Cemetery Book. – LH 929.5 Oly
An Index to Richland County, South Carolina Probate Records, 1785-1955. LH 929.3757 Osb.

Vital Statistics (births, marriage licenses and divorces)

Vital statistics are available in The State Neighbors section approximately 2-3 weeks after the event and are printed on a space available basis. Birth listings are the same across all 5 zones of the Neighbors section. However, the Lexington County zones publish the marriage licenses and divorce decrees from Lexington County and the Richland County zones publish that information from Richland County.

Births and marriage licenses were printed in the Columbia Record beginning in the late 1950s.
The Neighbors section has included marriage licenses, divorces and births since it began in September 17, 1981. The Neighbors section was printed (and microfilmed) with the Columbia Record on Thursdays until that paper was discontinued on April 1, 1988. It was printed with The State beginning April 7, 1988, and is still printed and filmed with The State.
This section has changed names over the years. Presently it is called Almanac Milestones. Past names have included Vital Stats and Vital Statistics.
Vital Statistics are available in NewsBank from approximately January 1996-present.
For real estate transactions, Police and Fire Reports, and business licenses from The State check at the Periodicals Desk.