Barbados Links

For those Grenadians who have Barbadian origins, Bajan record search just got a bit easier, as the LDS church has begun computerizing its Barbados holdings. You can search what they’ve completed so far (I’m not sure how many records remain to be done) at http://www.familysearch.org

Enter the surname you are researching and select Barbados from the country dropdown to see what they’ve got for you. It’s free.

Churches in St. George’s

Really good photos of the interiors and exteriors of the major churches in St. George’s, Grenada. These made the location listings on marriage and baptismal certificates real for me.

St. George’s Anglican Church

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (Scot’s Kirk)

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Roman Catholic)

Photos of the Methodist Church were missing from this set, sadly.

 

 

Geni.com: Mapping Grenada

I recently came across the online genealogy tool, Geni.com and I’m hooked.

Geni.com let’s you create a private online tree (you must be a member of Geni.com and have been invited – the default is that you be a family member – to view a given tree). You can manually enter your tree or start it by uploading a GEDCOM file.

Geni’s features foster family connectedness – there is a discussion forum, internal e-mail, special event reminders, an address book, and places to post photos and video. One feature I find quite interesting is Statistics which allows you to see, for example, how long your relatives have lived on average, where most were born, etc.

Geni is also interactive so there can be organic sharing of information.

Anyway, larger than the fun of its individual features is the potential that Geni.com represents for Grenadian genealogical research. Since Geni automatically shows you potential duplicate individuals in other trees, allows you to search its databases for potential matches and lets you link (with their agreement) to related trees, it presents the potential of mapping the whole island of Grenada.

As I dig further in my research, I become more and more certain that almost all Grenadians are somehow related. Geni.com could allow us to not only quickly fill in the blanks in our own trees but map Grenada.

So far, some Grenadian families are taking advantage of Geni. I’ve found trees that contain the following names so far:

BUCKMIRE

BAIN

BULLEN

CHARLES

FERGUSON

GLEAN

HOSTEN

HUGHES

NECKLES

LA GRENADE

MASON

MATHLIN

PREUDHOMME

RAPIER

RENWICK

STEELE

ST. BERNARD

WOODROFFE

Grenadian Preudhommes

I’ve decided to highlight various Grenadian genealogical information I’ve come across online.  The first of this “series” is the extensive information collected by Desmond Preudhomme of  Toronto on the following families (this is an abridged list as the full list is very long):

BANFIELD

BISHOP

BOURNE

CAMPBELL

DATE

DE FREITAS

DE GALE

DONALDSON

DUNCAN

FARMER

GIBBON

GILL

GOLTON/GOULTON

GOODING

GRANT

HUGHES

JAMES

JOAN

LOFTUS

LUSAN/LUSSAN

OTWAY

PREUDHOMME

MARSHALL

MIGNON

MINORS

PATERSON

PAYNE

PETERKIN

RENWICK

According to the page Desmond’s contact information is…

Desmond T W Preudhomme

78 Mayfield Ave

Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K8

416 760 7492

d_preudhomme@hotmail.com

I am sure he would appreciate being able to connect with more relatives and discover additional family information.

Everett Selwyn Woodroffe

The following is taken from Personalities Caribbean (published in Jamaica in 1971). There is a section in each of these reference volumes devoted to Grenadian notables. I’ve included corrections where applicable in []s.

“WOODROFFE, Everette [correct spelling is Everett] Selwyn, business, exec; Mng. Dir. Y. De Lima (G’da) Ltd.  Born St.  George’s, G’da, April 29, 1917, son of Ian [the name was Zan Zippor] Woodroffe and Louisa nee Robertson his wife. Educated G’da Boys Sec. Sch. Married Dec. 1942, Beryl nee Gibbs; 1 son (Patrick Selwyn), 4 daus. (Denise, Tessa, Wendy, Beryl Ann). Religion: Anglican Career: T. Noble Smith and Co., 28 yrs; a Founder of present company, 1963, in present post since; Ch’man G’da C’ttee for Miss World 1970 Contest (when Miss J. Hosten, G’da won title). Affiliations: Lions G’da (Pres.); Cham of Comm (Pres., 1970-71) Club: St. George’s. Interst: Cricket. Address: (bus.) Melville St., St. George’s P.). Cox 145, (home) Grand Anse, St. George’s, Grenada.

Anglican High School Past Pupils Group Seeks Your Help

The Anglican High School Past Pupils group has created a website on which they are displaying the history of the school in photographs and text.

The group is currently looking for photographs of the school’s former principals but would no doubt welcome any other photographs/documents you could send that would show school history.

You can contact past pupil Susan Patrice nee Griffith ’75 at 240-472-2140 or via a form on the Past Pupils website.

They are missing photos for…

Ms. Estelle Garraway
(1916-1939)

Ms. Marion A Bertrand
(1939-1954)

Sis. Frances Margaret of the Sisters of The Community of Jesus of the Good Shepherd
(1954-1963)

Ms. Dennis – 1 term 1963

Mr. E. DeVere Archer
(1963-1965) (acting)

Ms. Margaret Forder
(1965-1969)

Ms. Minnie Kemp
(1969-1971)

Mrs. Glenda Mason-Francis
(1984-2000)

The Anglican High School, St. George’s, is a prestigious secondary school for girls and has turned out many accomplished pupils.

Digitising the endangered archives of Grenada

In short, a project to preserve and digitize Grenada’s essential documents has begun.

This is EXCELLENT news as the current storage of said documents is horrific and we have already lost so much to fire, water and pest damage.  I am glad to see that the group pushing these efforts prevailed – I was worried that they would not be able to find funding. It appears that they found their partner and funding in the British Library.

The digitization is to start with the Grenada Public Library’s collection of old newspapers and culminate with the opening of a National Archives building where hard copy and digitized versions of materials will be stored.

More details on the project here.

HOORAY!!

The Grenada Handbook

The Grenada Handbook is a wonderful primary resource for Grenada genealogists and historians/history buffs alike. Published between 1896  and 1946 (no issues were printed from 1919-1920 and 1922-1926) and compiled by the Colonial Secretary, the Handbook offers a wealth of information about Grenada’s history and the way in which the Colony was structured.

This from Allister Hughes’ website:

“These handbooks were published from 1896 to 1948, and include a vast wealth of data, from pictures of the “First Motor Car in Grenada,” to a Chronicle of Events for the prior year, lists of registered medical practitioners, foreign consuls, cocoa and nutmeg dealers, a map of the Grand Etang Forest Reserve, financial statistics, lawyers fees, and a directory of all businesses in the colony.”

I’ve been quite excited to see several of the names I’ve been following in them.

For those interested in biology and botany, the Grenada Handbook also lists Grenada’s flora and fauna and tracks the island’s weather.

You are truly lucky if you own one or more of the Handbooks, since they are rare books that retail for around $400 each. I don’t own any of the issues and rely on libraries and interlibrary loan to get my hands on them.

1897 and 1902 are available online from Google Books. You can download a PDF from there if you are in the US. If you are outside of the US, it’s always possible to use an online proxy like Zend (though, before someone flames me, I am not advocating this) to do so.

New York Public Library has 1896-1927 (minus the years when the handbook wasn’t published) on microfilm.

Hard copies are available in/from the following libraries:

CANADA

CISTI – National Research Council Library (Ottawa, Canada) has 1896-1906, 1909-11, 1912, 1914-21, 1927. It costs $25 in Canada to borrow a book for 6 weeks. It’s $45 outside of Canada.

Toronto Public Library (Reference Library) has 1909 and 1927.

McGill University has 1897 in its Rare Books/Special Collections (McLennan Building).

CARIBBEAN

Can anyone confirm whether the Grenada Museum and/or Public Library have Handbook issues?

University of the West Indies in Trinidad has holdings

The Barbados Museum and Historical Society has holdings.

UK

University of London has 1927 (Institute of Historical Research)

Cambridge University Library has 1896-1927 and 1946.

Oxford University has 1896-1907 and 1927.

UNITED STATES

Harvard University (Widener Library) has 1897, 1902, 1905, 1912, 1921 and 1927.

Boston Public Library has 1946-

Boston College Library has 1897

The Schomburg Center (New York – Part of New York Public Library) has 1927.

Columbia University Library has 1896-1927 and 1946-

NYU has 1896 and 1946

Yale University Library has 1946

Cornell University has 1897.

University of Pennsylvania has 1900.

University of Chicago has 1900, 1902, 1912, 1921 and 1946.

Detroit Public Library has 1946 and 1927.

Stanford University has 1917/18, 1921 and 1927

This is definitely not an exhaustive list – but hopefully it’s a start…

Possible Genealogical Info from George Brizan

George Brizan’s histories of Grenada are chocked full of names and other information that may be useful to genealogists. Here are some tidbits I copied down from Grenada: Island of Conflict. Warning – they are disjointed:

1793

William Smith, Englishman, owner of Revolution Hall Estate (now called Brothers)

Mentions Alexander Campbell and Lt. Governor Ninian Home as planters at this time

1795

Lussan, a merchant from Gouyave is mentioned [ I think this is the surname now spelled Lusan]

Balthazar Estate is owned by de Poulain

Julien Fedon owned the large Belvedere Estate in St. John’s

————————–

Domingo Sebastian DeFreitas mentioned as a planter from St. John’s and a Member of the Governor’s Legislative Council in the late 1800s

————————

Magistrates and Special Justices

1835

TA Sinclair

Mr.  Cayley

Mr. John Ross

Mr. Garraway until early 1836 when he was replaced by Fraser

1837

John Ross

T. Cayley [most likely the same man as above]

L. Walsh

CS Fraser

TA Sinclair

1838

Chief Justice – John Sanderson

Ass. judges: LJ Walsh and John Wells

Special justices: CJ Fraser, RM Jephson, Julien DeGourville and Philip Staunton

—————————

Plantation managers in the 1830s

Mr. Leid – Mt. Reuil Estate

Mr. Agar – Mt. Gay Estate

Dr. John Brown – Clark’s Court Estate

1876

Bocage, Pearls, Boulogne and Madeys Estates owned by Theophilus Law

St. Bernard Search

I have been tracking St. Bernards from St. Paul’s District, St. George’s Parish and from St. David’s Parish for some time but am still not able to “crack the code.” Little pieces of the puzzle do come together, but still I have a lot of “orphaned” individuals and dead ends. So, I’m going to throw some of the St. Bernard information I have out to you in the hope…

Most of the St. Bernards lived either in Good Hope, Mt. Hope (I’m not sure exactly where this was, since no one seems to use that term today) or near St. Paul’s Chapel and the Tower owned by the Slingers (this area is sometimes also called St. Leonard’s Land in the old records). One group seem to have lived in Morne Delice, as well.

James ST. BERNARD and his wife Lucretia of Good Hope have a number of children in the 1880s and 1890s, all baptized in St. Paul’s Chapel:

– Arthur Wellesley St. Bernard baptized in 1887

– Elizabeth Virginia St. Bernard baptized in 1889

– Claud Alvern St. Bernard baptized in 1891

– Edward Septimus St. Bernard baptized in 1893

– Edmund Fitzherbert St. Bernard baptized in 1885

George Nathaniel ST. BERNARD and his wife Julia of Good Hope:

– George Templeman St. Bernard baptized in 1888

George ST. BERNARD and his wife Matilda of Good Hope:

– Alfonso Matthias St. Bernard baptized in 1891

Festus ST. BERNARD and his wife Jules R. or Julia R. (record was hard to read) of Mt. Hope:

– Byron Festus Macaulay St. Bernard baptized in 1886

John ST. BERNARD and his wife Elizabeth of Good Hope

– Edith Matilda St. Bernard baptized in 1888

– Samuel Leabertson St. Bernard baptized in 1890

– Hyacinth (middle name was illegible) St. Bernard baptized in 1893

– David Tennyson St. Bernard baptized in 1894