Researching Jamaican Family History (Throwback)

Can tracing your roots transform your understanding of family and self? In this episode I share my personal journey to uncover my Caribbean ancestry. Inspired by my fascination with history and guided by the methods seen in "Finding Your Roots," I delve into the complexities and joys of piecing together my family tree. From contacting Jamaican genealogical agencies to finding precious documents like my great-great-grandparents' marriage license from 1893,  I share my experience throughout this meticulous process.

Learn about the quirks of historical record-keeping in the Caribbean, such as name variations and the impact of literacy rates on document accuracy. Hear anecdotes about how I identified ancestors despite inconsistent names and birthdates.

For those eager to embark on their own genealogical quests, I've got you covered with practical tips and strategies. Whether you're a beginner or looking to refine your research, this episode offers a treasure trove of insights to help you connect with your Caribbean heritage and preserve your family's legacy.

Visit the website for details on doing research - https://www.carryonfriends.com/researching-jamaican-family-history/

Caribbean Legal Solutions is the easiest way to find an attorney in the Caribbean. Contact them today at 1-877-418-2723 or via WhatsApp (718) 887-6141 or at caribbeanlegalsolutions.com 

Disclaimer: This podcast ad contains general information about Caribbean Legal Solutions and is not intended as legal advice.  Always consult with a qualified attorney for legal advice specific to your situation.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Carry On Friends, the Caribbean American podcast. I'm your host, carrie Anne, and, as always, I am excited that you have chosen to listen to this podcast and this episode. In this episode, I will be talking about researching your Caribbean family history. Okay, so let me give you the backstory.

Speaker 1: 0:44

I love history and I love learning about my family history. I just love learning about the past. I've always loved the series Finding your Roots on PBS with Professor Gates, the series Finding your Roots on PBS with Professor Gates, and I've always imagined myself being a guest and he finds all these wonderful things about my family history. Well, I know that a lot of that history is not going to be found in American databases and so I know I have to trace a lot of that back to the Caribbean. And doing that research in the Caribbean and while doing DNA research is great. It tells you how much percentage you have of African, european or whatever. That's great For me. I wanted more tangible things like this person, this place, this date, and that has always stuck in the back of my mind about wanting to know more about my family.

Speaker 1: 1:47

So a little bit more backstory on my grandparents. I know a lot about my maternal grandfather and grandmother's family, and my paternal grandmother's family, which is just that side alone, is just huge, and I grew up knowing only one great-grandparent, and she passed away in 2000. And she, of course, being the great-grandmother, was the matriarch of the family. My grandmother revered her mother and my great-grandmother lived in Canada up until 2000 on her annual back to Jamaica trip during the holiday season because Canada was too cold for her at that age and she passed away. But I never heard of her parents. My great-grandmother never talked about her parents and I barely heard about the other great-grandparents, and so this also was the impetus to learn more about the great-grands that I didn't know because they either passed away before I was born or even before my mother or father was born. I grew up with second, third cousins because we all lived in almost the same community or the neighboring community, and so it's just always been intriguing, and you know Caribbean people they run joke, like you know, you gotta find out your family history because you don't want to be marrying a cousin or something like that. So anyway, because of this interest in history, this intrigue about my family and where they come from, and just wanting to know more about this very large family and really how far and wide we spread.

Speaker 1: 3:35

I became more increasingly interested in doing this research. So I saw a tweet can't find the tweet now to save my life but I saw a tweet and it was like the first clue that said aha, I can do this, this is really within reach. What is stopping you from doing? And so there began my journey of reaching out to this specific agency in Jamaica to do genealogy research. I casted a wide net, wanting to find out a lot about these three branches from these three grandparents. I didn't really have an expectation of what I was going to find, I just wanted to know. I just wanted to get the research started.

Speaker 1: 4:25

And by this time I had told my mom, I told my brothers, I mentioned it to a couple cousins and everybody was getting interested about the research. While I was doing this, I was like I just want to know about the research. While I was doing this, I was like I just want to know. And people started adding. I heard this at one point. I remember and I think years ago I had, when I was active on Facebook, I announced it At one point there was a rumor that my paternal grandmother, her father or one of her father's brothers was from Trinidad.

Speaker 1: 4:59

I was like, wow, really. So I even included this in my genealogy research and so I finally got my report. And the disclaimer was this is a starting point, because I only paid for X amount of hours to do research and the report came back with me knowing a lot of what was already on there. It was just confirmation, but there were other interesting things in the report. I was like why is this the case? Why is that the case? So for me, a history lover, it was just really amazing to see my ancestors come alive, on paper, basically.

Speaker 1: 5:40

So I wanted to share a little bit of what I found, not giving too many specific details about my family, but general dates and times and stuff. So what I found was the marriage license of my maternal great-great-grandfather, who was married to my great-great-grandmother in 1893. It told me how old they were when they were married, where they lived at the time, who were the witnesses of this marriage. And then I got the date of birth for my great-grandfather, which is just such amazing information. And then I also got the marriage record of my great-grandparents. So this is my grandfather, who passed away recently, his parents. So I got this information. I had a general idea of some of this, but when old people telling you stories, it's not as specific or there are certain facts and so, having a marriage license, they were married in 1940 and you know where they were married his occupation, her occupation, her age, his age, who witnessed, who was the marriage officer, all their kids.

Speaker 1: 7:03

This document was just amazing for me and of course, part of the research includes me and when I was born I didn't ask for that, but they were doing a general genealogy. So it's showing genealogy, so it's showing all these people and how it leads down to me. So this was just really really great to see all of this information, not only about my maternal great-great-grandparents, but my paternal great-grandparents and on my other side, so my mom's parents. So it was just really interesting. I knew what my great-grandmother's name was before she got married, where she came from, and it's just fascinating knowing that. Ooh, my great-great-grandfather was born in this time and I plan to do more digging because this was just really the tip of the iceberg. I know I didn't give a lot, but this really answered some important questions.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So, my mother's father and his brothers. They have different last names and for my entire childhood I was confused how are they brothers and they have different last names? And typically when that happens it's because, well, they have different fathers. In this case it wasn't that they had different mothers, so my grandfather had one mother and his brothers had another mother, but the kids had different last names. And it was just puzzling to me in the stories were maybe my great-grandfather was really a player and he just he didn't want his wife to know he had these other kids and that's why they had this last name. And I'm like that didn't seem right. I mean, they lived in the same community, so it wasn't like they lived in another parish in Jamaica and the other kids they lived in the same parish in the same community. So him trying to give them different last names so his wife wouldn't know about them was not a feasible or a good excuse.

Speaker 1: 9:10

And it wasn't until I got older when I looked at the construct of my mother's name, which is a fairly interesting last name, and what my granduncles, their names and, of course, their kids, their names, were. It made me realize that the reason why they had two different last names, even though they were from the same father was it was a spelling error due to pronunciation, right Right, this is very common in the Caribbean and we'll get into you, starting off your research. So, again, the reason why they had different last names, it was a spelling error due to maybe whoever registered the births using phonetics to spell the name as opposed to how the name was actually spelled the name as opposed to how the name was actually spelled. So that cleared up that and really finally put proof to that's the reason why my grandfather had one last name and the other kids had a different last name. And at one point there was like a quarrel and that went which last name is the right last name? And that has been settled as to which name is the right last name and that has been settled as to which name is the right last name.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Okay, so if you're interested in doing research about your genealogy, I'm going to speak about it from the Jamaican perspective and then I can talk a little bit more about, if you're from another Caribbean country, what your options are to do your own research, if there's such a service that exists in your Caribbean country, and if it doesn't, maybe you have the opportunity to. You know, prod a little bit to maybe get some information or see if there's a option, but they should have. So before you embark on this journey, you want to be able to get as much information as possible. Me getting the information that I have was based on things that I just knew as a fact. You want to get place of birth, if possible. Date of birth. If you can't get the specific place of birth for I think, most Caribbean countries, they have parishes you want to get parish of birth and if you were born here to Caribbean parents, you're not sure what parish means. Parish is like a state, so you want to get date of birth, place of birth place and parish. And if you can't get the specific place, parish generally is good because the birth records are going to be registered by parish.

Speaker 1: 12:55

In some instances date of death is important. So because we're doing this research in Jamaica, for instance, while my grandmother was born in Jamaica, she moved here and she died in the US. So Jamaica would not have her death certificate. So Jamaica will only have birth, marriage and death certificate that happens in Jamaica, any major life event that happens outside of Jamaica. They wouldn't have records for that and we'd have to fill in those blanks from the US or outside of the Caribbean. So if you're in Canada or the UK, so again you want to have date of birth place, slash parish of birth, date of marriage, place of marriage if that's applicable, and in other instances date of death and parish of death. And that's also important because within the country people migrated. So my grandfather was born in St Mary and he moved to St James, which is the parish that contains Montego Bay, where I'm from. So you have to be very specific as to place or parish of death if that's applicable. Specific as to place or parish of death, if that's applicable.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Now, the Caribbean is notorious notorious for nicknames or pet names, so be careful with these. My whole life I know my Auntie Shirley and I've called her Auntie Shirley. I've known her as Auntie Shirley and it was earlier this year, in January, that at a funeral where they were going through the eulogy, I learned that Auntie Shirley's real name is not even Shirley and her real name is not even close to Shirley. So you want to be careful of pet names or nicknames and double check right, double check that this is the accurate name. And if you're not sure, if, like in this case Auntie Shirley name is her right name.

Speaker 1: 15:02

I had another example where one of my uncles I'm like, yeah, I know him as Uncle this. I'm not quite sure if his real name is this, because I grew up my whole life calling him that, but because, although he was my grand uncle, he had kids that I went to school with. They were around. You know, one was a year in a grade higher than me, so I knew her name in school. Like this is her name. So you know, that's the one thing, this was her name. That she went by in school. Like this is her name. So you know, that's the one thing, this was her name. That she went by in school. So I provided that information so they could do a reverse engineer that, okay, look for this name and it should show, maybe find that person's birth records and it will see who the father is, et cetera, et cetera. Right, so there are other ways to get creative about if you can't determine the real name of this person, but you are almost positive, the real name of their child or a spouse or a sibling is X, then they could work with that information.

Speaker 1: 16:04

You want to be careful of wrong birthdays. My husband. For years his grandmother was saying her birthday was X and then it became Y. And then there's this question of was it really X to begin with? So pay attention to these family histories and these nuances because, again, it was notorious for this to happen in the Caribbean. It was notorious for birthdays to be recorded days later, sometimes months later. It's notorious for spelling errors in names. It's notorious for names not written properly.

Speaker 1: 16:44

I was talking to my cousin about the results of the report and he was telling me that, and he was telling me that, say, for instance, my cousin was supposed to be called Carrie Ann Reed Jr. And they wrote it down, jr, carrie Ann Reed. And we're like, how did they do that? But these things happen because you didn't fill out the form. You gave somebody this information and then they wrote it down. This is what they called the registrant, and whoever went to register the birth or the death, they're called the informant. So you want to be careful, do research, you'll be surprised to know. Just simple misspelling of names, right? So even my uncle, my mother's brother, they have the same father, same mother. They have two different spellings of their last name. Crazy to me. So, anyway, where do I get this done? I went to the Registrar General Department and I'll put the link for this in the show notes and in the blog post the Registrar General's Department in Jamaica, and this is the same department that right now in Jamaica, if you're getting married, your marriage license is filed, your death certificate is filed, their birth certificate. They have records going back from 1661.

Speaker 1: 18:14

There's just some interesting things that I found on the report and I want to thank the wonderful acting research supervisor who was just extremely helpful in helping me make sense of certain information. So, on my genealogy report, there were some instances so, like my grandfather's brothers or some other members of the family, it said no surname on the birth certificate. So I'm curious if there's no surname on the birth certificate, how do they end up with a surname? And that's when they explained to me what was called the Bastardi Act. And this is because Jamaica, along with much of the Caribbean, was going through a colonial time. And this happens when a child is born out of wedlock, a name isn't put on the birth certificate, and so how a last name end up to be associated with the child. Oh Lord, I can't even. That's for a whole different leg of the research. But that explained why there was no surname in some instances, particularly on my grandfather's side, because there were people who were born out of wedlock. So that explains that wedlock. So that explains that Also. Who did the registration is also responsible, as I mentioned, for how the name is spelt, how they hear the name, and you have to think of maybe the literacy rate at that time, depending on how far back this is going. So in some instances with my grandfather's siblings we were talking about the late 19-teens, so 1919, 1920s around that time.

Speaker 1: 20:00

The other thing to be mindful of I did this research this year and at the time Jamaica had curfews and so, as with what most of the world is dealing with, expect some delays. They hopefully should be updating their website to maybe reflect more of what's happening, because Jamaica now has some no movement days and so that will impact the research. Also, understanding that not all of these birth records are digitized. Some of them might require people to go to specific parishes or reach out to people in different parishes to get the paper records, and it may not be digitized. So you want to think of, you know that when you are doing your research. The cost for the research is $15 an hour and so I paid for seven hours of research and it got me a lot of information.

Speaker 1: 21:07

The other advice that I would give if you embark on a research, don't do what I did and want to find out about three or four of my grandparents. Focus on one branch of the time, because while I was able to get some good information, I do realize that if I had focused on maybe one grandparent's line branch of a tree, that would have probably yielded much more information. But what I got was also valuable, because then now as a family, I can determine which way I want to go and how much more to dig. But you want to be very strategic about how well you spend that time, because again, you're paying for X amount of time and so you don't want to cast too wide of a net, like I did, and maybe kind of focus on one branch at a time to get the best use of your time and the more in-depth research, because they were trying to find about one grandparent and then they were crisscrossing to another grandparent. So, from my experience, I would focus on one particular line at a time, and how do you choose which one? That's up to you, maybe the one that has more intrigue, like hmm, I don't really know, and so maybe that's the one that you start with.

Speaker 1: 22:20

For other Caribbean countries, again, you want to see if they're a similar department to their registrar general departments this is the department in the country that's responsible for recording births, marriages and deaths, because this is the record that most are going to be using and to see if they have the service available to do research and the cost around that. And that's it really. You know, this is just really the tip of the iceberg for me, because I'm just like, wow, all these possibilities. And so I know a lot of you in my audience have an interest in reconnecting with your Caribbean heritage. Maybe your first generation and your parents moved here. You don't know much about their parents, or et cetera.

Speaker 1: 23:12

This is a great way to do some research on your own, but you also need to interview the members of your family to get as much information, because I know for the Jamaican service, you have to fill in as much information as possible. They're going to ask about you, your parents, then their parents, so you want to make sure you have a lot of this information upfront before you begin your research. Again to me, knowing my immediate family and then knowing that, oh, my grandparents' parents, this is how they were, and then my great-grandparents these were their parents. Ooh, they came from this part of Jamaica. This is interesting, and so I just wanted to share with you this really incredible resource that's available if you are of Jamaican heritage, and also, if you are not of Jamaican heritage but you're elsewhere in the Caribbean, that this might be an option for you to explore as well.

Speaker 1: 24:16

I want you to stay tuned, because connecting with culture has been a really big theme that was pulled out of our focus group research, and so there's going to be some more things coming along the line, but let me know if you have any questions about researching your Caribbean family history. As always, you can send me an email. Hello at Carry On Friends. You could connect with me on social media, and I hope you are also inspired to research your family history from my investigative endeavors.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I think the only thing that I really want now is a software to build the family tree, and I'm reluctant to use open public stuff. So I don't want to create an account on any of these platforms because I'm concerned also about my own privacy and I don't necessarily want that information to be there. I just want a nice family tree creator tool so I can see how I've come from these descendants and it's pretty exciting stuff. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Carry On Friends. I hope you really found it informative and I hope it helps you connect to your family. So until next time, walk good.