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The Commemorative Quarter for South Carolina





Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Salem (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Salem. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Salem is located in Florence County.

To see how the shape of South Carolina's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Florence County: Clarendon, Darlington, Dillon, Lee, Marion, Marlboro & Williamsburg.

Below are the counties that are near Salem. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Salem:

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Salem, see our County-by-County Page for Salem.

Cemeteries Near Salem ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Salem.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Salem covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Salem, with the one closest to Salem listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<5>

While we didn't find Salem in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Salem.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Salem, with the one closest to Salem listed first.

  • Coward
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Scranton
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Lake City
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Friendfield
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Friendfield. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Friendfield
    • Friendfield is located in Florence County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Friendfield
    • From Salem to Friendfield
  • Effingham
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Sardis
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Sardis. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sardis
    • Sardis is located in Florence County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Sardis
    • From Salem to Sardis
  • Seloc
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Seloc have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seloc
    • Seloc is located in Clarendon County
  • Cades
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
  • Hyman
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hyman have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hyman
    • Hyman is located in Florence County
  • Howe
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Howe have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Howe
    • Howe is located in Florence County
  • Hannah
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Blossom
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Blossom have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blossom
    • Blossom is located in Florence County
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Shiloh
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shiloh have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shiloh
      • Shiloh is located in Sumter County
    • Timmonsville
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Ebenezer
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Salem. See our List of 1890's Communities around Salem.

Newspapers Published in Salem ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 18 newspapers that have been published in the area around Salem.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Salem, there are papers which were published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Salem.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Salem:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Salem. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for Florence County: www.florenceco.org/

The official website for State of South Carolina: https://sc.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<3>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<4>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<5>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Salem, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Salem) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Salem. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 33.9626, Longitude: -79.8046    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 22 Apr 2025