Day Three at NGS Charleston

Today was another great day, though it was a short day for me at the Convention. Instead of my early morning cup of coffee for breakfast (and a hastily grabbed and eaten pretzel later on), I skipped the eight o’clock session and had a nice leisurely breakfast with my husband at the hotel.

Presentations: Today I attended only the 9:30 and 11:00 sessions. 9:30 was Brent Holcomb on “South Carolina’s Vital Records and Substitutes for Them.” The situation is certainly complicated - some places kept certain records in earlier years; some did not. A marriage license may have been obtained in one county but the marriage may have taken place in another. And so on.

The next presentation had been at the top of the list I made of presentations to attend: Elizabeth Shown Mills on “Problem Solving in the Problem-Riddled Carolina Backcountry.” There are a mountain’s worth of problems created for the researcher by various factors in this part of the Carolinas. One of the most interesting facts we learned was that men who lived in this area during the Revolutionary War may be found serving for other states; South Carolina and Georgia units often had to recruit men from North Carolina and Virginia, making it hard to predict where men from these states served at various times.

Goodies: Bought just one more book - the only Greenville deed abstract book that I didn’t have.

Fun: In the afternoon I went back to Charleston with my family. First we went to the Aiken-Rhett house. This is a house where the operative word is preservation, not restoration. That means walls and ceilings with peeling surfaces and old furniture in various states of repair. It is quite fascinating - you can see what the original wallpaper looked like, some of the actual furniture used by the family, and so forth.

Aiken-Rhett House

Next we went to the Charleston Museum. An enjoyable and easy-to-do place. Neat stuff: skeleton of a baleen whale, dinosaur skeletons, early Native American artifacts, period clothing, and much more. My daughter and I tried on hoop skirts.

From there we took the free trolley to Poogan’s Porch to eat - the perfect end to the day. My daughter enjoyed taking pictures of a charmingly brazen little sparrow who knew a soft touch when he spotted one - and shared some crumbs from our delicious biscuits.

Poogan, on whose porch we ate

Poogan's Porch

The Bird