York County History Search
The York County Library of York County, South Carolina, has many valuable resources for local historians and genealogists including newspaper articles, typed manuscripts, photographs, and electronic databases. To make them easily accessible to the researcher and to preserve them for future generations, we have digitized many of these items and provided access to them through this website.
Access to three seperate databases are provided through this website:
- A database of photograph collections that have been donated to the York County Library by local residents
- A database of digitized newspaper articles (many with photographs), manuscripts of family histories, church histories, and centennial celebration pageants
- A newspaper database that indexes selected articles from The Herald published from the late 1980s through the late 1990s
How to Search
Photograph Database
Search the photograph database using the search box at the top of the website or click on “Advanced Search” for more options. The search will return any photographs that match the search terms you put into the search box. Use the drop down box in front of the search box to search for matches by title or by words in the photograph’s description.
Newspaper Article, Manuscript, and Church History Database
The newspaper clippings in this database are from the local newspaper, The Herald, and its predecessors, The State or The Charlotte Observer. This database developed from newspaper clippings and manuscripts collected and/or prepared by Rock Hill Public Library Staff from the 1930s to the 1970s. The collection was microfilmed in the late 1970s. This collection includes stories of prominent citizens, founding families, historic homes, churches, events and businesses around York County.
There are four ways to search this database:
- Pattern search – returns results that contain the letters entered in the search box. Example: “York” will return results York or Yorkville
- Boolean search – returns an exact match to letters entered in the search box. You may use the Boolean operators such as AND, OR, NOT and wildcards
- Concept search – finds words that are close in meaning. Example: “church” will also return cathedral, synagogue, temple
- Browse
You may set your search preferences by clicking on Preferences prior to searching. Here you may change the fields displayed, how many results are displayed per page and/or in total and display format. These changes are saved for the current session only. These changes will revert to default when the session is ended.
Newspaper Index (1990 – 1998)
The York County Library has selectively indexed the local newspaper, The Herald, for articles of interest to genealogists and local historians. Topics include events, historic homes and structures, and stories of prominent citizens.
This database is an index only of The Herald, the Rock Hill, SC newspaper. This index spans the years from 1990 to 1998. Articles referred to in this index are available on microfilm in the Local History Room, Main Library, York County Library, Rock Hill, SC. Non–residents may obtain photocopies for a fee by using the Ask–A–Librarian form.