REDEMPTION SONG: THE TRANSFORMATIVE NATURE OF CARIBBEAN GENEALOGY

Researching Caribbean ancestry can be complex. I discovered this very early on. I was first interested in learning more about my family history when I was eleven years old. My mother’s friend had been researching her own English ancestry for some years and I used to accompany her to record offices as she knew of my curiosity about history. My interest was really sparked on a visit to the Public Records Office in Kew (now the National Archives) when she showed me the Domesday Book. This thousand year old document with its ancient pages and indecipherable scrawls of text intrigued me. There were names in this book which represented real people, and their descendants were documented in the thousands of records held within the archives’ walls.

Although I enjoyed learning about English history at school, as a person of colour I had learnt to separate myself from this. This was history, but this wasn’t my history. I wanted to know more about my ancestors, their lives and their legacies. Caribbean family history research is complicated by multiple factors which in some ways are unique to our experience. This includes issues around racial difference and colourism, less traditional family structures and illegitimacy as well as legacies of slavery and indentureship. In this article I will discuss some of my personal experiences in researching my family history, which records and sources I used and how I was able to overcome some of these barriers.

MY STORY

My parents were born in the UK but my maternal grandparents were from Trinidad and had arrived in the UK in 1961 as part of the generation. Trinidad is a cosmopolitan island with