What did we find out

The very first thing we realised is that as a DNA family we are all spread across the world.  North America, South America, The Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia.  Not a continent untouched.  We are truly a multi ethnic global family.

The ancestry results, also give you a breakdown of your ethnicity estimates (this changes are more people test).  My DNA showed, mainly West African and some European DNA.  As someone with enslaved ancestors, I was even more curious now.

Conversations and Mapping

The very first zoom calls, were a roundtable of each of us introducing ourselves and explaining what had led us to do a DNA test.  Then began the painstaking work of who links us together.  The starting point was myself and cousin Robin.  We knew we both shared a common ancestor – Papa Hope, our great grandfather. 

Our first task was to map out a family tree. We were still somewhat stumped.  I then remembered conversations that I had with Papa Hope’s daughter, one of my grandmothers.  She had told me the family was large, and many of the men were gold and diamond seekers.  This little gold nugget was to prove very helpful.

Resources and Success

As a group we started seeking records to help corroborate oral history.  This is where most of us hit a barrier.  As people of Caribbean origin and of an ancestral past in which Trans-Atlantic slavery featured, we discovered that records were few and far between.

Looking for census records, we came across the British Guiana 1948 census.  Amazon must have had a flood of sales that day as we all ordered copies and started reading census records.  We came across people with the surname of Hope.  But that means nothing, unless you are DNA connected.  The little gold nugget of “gold and diamond seekers” came back…we found Hope’s who were gold and diamond seekers.  These were our family.  From this we were able to start making good progress.

This is just one line of my family.  Next I returned to my parents and asked for copies of grandparents birth, marriage and death certificates. I got hold of two sets only.  But this was helpful.

One grandfather’s birth certificate, showed the names of his parents (another set of great grandparents for  me) and who was in attendance at his home birth.  The woman in attendance at the birth was one of the sisters of one of my great grandmothers – Isabella.  Through the power of DNA, one of my DNA matches, was able to identify this sibling as her great grandmother, so we then had a tree.

Testing the family

I needed more people to be tested. I asked my parents to test.  This yielded more and better results, with them being a generation higher.  My Zoom group of DNA relatives was also doing the same.  We were recalling and recording every snippet of oral history that we had. 

Cousin Caroline (who I found through DNA) in the US, then found a letter, from an elderly relative in Barbados.  On this particular branch of the family it gave us detail to identify the names of our earliest known relatives. These were two formerly enslaved people who married on the day of emancipation.  Many of my DNA matches can trace them as our ancestors.

Slave Registers

Let me go back to records.  One of my family lines has a very unique name.  I searched the slave registers for this name.  There was only one slave owner with this name.  Additionally, it showed the enslaved people being moved from Demerara (Guyana, was previously in three parts, Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice) to Barbados.  Through painstaking record searching I now have a line from 1775 with the first recorded African ancestor up to a death in 1923 in Barbados.  I also have the start of a new line in Guyana in 1923.  These are connected.  I am still working out how.  In this case, it is all in a name and also DNA evidence.

Road Blocks

Along this journey, I am hitting many roadblocks which I am sharing below, in case you are considering a genealogical journey now or in the future.

• Women being identified as Mrs X and not by their birth names. Also, if a woman was married more than once, she took the name of the new husband.  Unless you share DNA with the new husband, you are most likely not DNA related.
• People being adopted and having different names
• Ancestors having affairs and children not having the correct parent named on the birth certificate
• Use of nicknames and not actual registered names
• Your ancestors being of an ethnic origin of which you were unaware. Also be mindful, that your parents will carry different DNA from you, in the same way you will carry different DNA to your siblings. We are all VERY different and VERY unique.
• Birth certificates not listing the name of a father
• Family members not wishing to talk about the past

Books to read

In improving my knowledge on my ancestry, I read as much as I can consume, of particular interest, right now are the following books which I highly recommend

• White Debt – this tells the story of the Demerara uprising in Guyana. The enslaved fought at every turn for their freedom.  This book uses diaries of colonists and some of the previously unheard voices of those involved in the uprising.  It is a shocking read of brutality by colonial oppressors. In 2022, I was able to visit the land of my birth.  I stood in front of the Cuffy and Quamina statues.  Without their heroic efforts, we might well be looking at a very different story.
• Slaves and Highlanders – this book by David Alston has been a revelation to me. He has spent twenty years researching the link between the Scottish Highlands and Demerara. His work is very insightful.  I love Scotland and have visited seven times.  First from my student days and over the past five years, I have driven “Scotland by coast road” and also visited the inner and outer Hebrides.  I always felt that somehow I was connected to Scotland. 

Guess what, my DNA revealed some Scottish DNA, yet no one knows of a Scottish ancestor.  I had a most insightful chat with a DNA match, who had traced the Clarke line from two brothers who left Perth to journey to the Caribbean in the late 1700s.

My challenge with finding out our common ancestor is that colonists/enslavers had their “white families” and then families with “African women”. I suspect this is where the connection lies.