Receive more free information....Subscribe to Lost Generations Newsletter
A Scrub-board and Tub of Water By Jeannette Holland Austin
A Scrub-board and Tub of Water
By Jeannette Holland Austin
In the old days my father had an insurance route and travelled over North Carolina and South Carolina. It was the summer of 1937 when we settled temporarily in a little white clapboard house in Abbeville, South Carolina. The house desperately needed screens in the windows to keep out the gnats. Abbeville was a typical rural village of open meadows and yards of chickens and dogs running loose. We had an ice box but had to fetch water from the well which was used to fill ice trays and a backyard tub with a scruboard for washing clothes. An ordinary life-style for those days. One custom was to sit around a fireplace in the evenings and read the Holy Bible, a work which contained names and dates of children and relatives. The local coat house had dark wood planked floors and oak shelves built in to the walls of small rooms. The business of keeping county records was incidential to farmers who did not always record deeds, and to travelling evangelists who did not bother to record marriages either. It was the years of depression; people worked hard to survive. It had not been too long since the State of South Carolina mandated the recording of such instruments. Meanwhile, some three hundred years of living in the State had passed without impor#FFF8DCce. All that one had for sure was his bible. There were no public birth or death records. Occasionally you find a local DAR chapter or historical society who has a small collection of such bibles. They have them because their members went out into the countryside and asked for old bibles. Tsk. Tsk. So much has been lost. We no longer record family names inside our bibles. Every State Archives has a collection of old bible records. In Georgia, they are found on microfilm, as well as loose inside folders. Also, the DAR made a collection during the 1930's and these typed records are scattered throughout each chapter book. Some years ago I found some old North Carolina and South Carolina Bible records and incorporated them into a book called North Carolina-South Carolina Bible Records. After this book went out-of-print, I added the collection to the following websites, available to members: www.southcarolinapioneers.com and www.northcarolinapioneers.com. The index to these bibles are found
here Jeannette Holland Austin
Author of over 100 family histories and genealogies
Jeannette Holland Austin, Georgia Author of Genealogy Books
Georgia County Records (digital images) wills, estates, marriages
How to Make Money in 24 Hours
Join us on Twitter
Do you need a web host? I personally recommend lunarpages. Tech support 24 hours a day; free domain.
Home of