5/18/2007 11:47:00 AM Using slave register to trace your roots
Meredith Ebbin
Black Bermudians seeking to trace their roots back to their slave ancestors will soon have an easier time of it.
The Bermuda Maritime Museum is preparing to publish later this year details about slaves in Bermuda that were collected over the 16 years before slavery's abolition.
The source of the information is four slave registers, done between 1819 and 1834 and now lodged in the Bermuda Archives.
The registers contain the names of slaves, their birthplace and their occupations along with slave owners' names.
They were painstaking transcribed from 19th century script by Le Yoni Junos, as a personal project, and the Museum now intends to publish them in special edition to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the ending of the British slave trade this year.
Maritime Museum director Dr. Edward Harris said the four registers "are very important records commenting on 50 per cent of the then Bermuda population. Fortunately, they have survived. "With the tremendous interest in genealogy, the Museum is of the opinion that they should be published in a book format, with a searchable CD.
"These slave registers are a tremendous record of the social position, age and work category of half of the population. Our view is that they should be made widely available."
Safeguarded registers
The registers, which are safeguarded in the climate-controlled environment of the Bermuda Archives, were put on exhibit in the summer of 2005, along with a newly-restored Bermuda Emancipation Act that led to slaves being freed on August 1, 1834.
Abolition was the final act in a protracted battle that had begun several decades earlier with the campaign to end the practice of slave trading, which occurred in 1807.
In preparation for the emancipation of slaves and in order to monitor cases of illegal slave trading, Britain required slave owners in all its colonies to register their slaves.
In Bermuda, four slave registrations were done, with the most comprehensive one carried out between 1833 and 1834. Government Archivist Karla Hayward told the Bermuda Sun in 2005 that some slave owners initially balked at registering their slaves, but became more cooperative as time went on because it was the only way they would receive financial compensation on abolition.
She said the 1831 and 1834 registers were produced by George Mallory, who was sent to Bermuda by the British. His office is still standing. It's in the White House, on the grounds of the Cabinet building.
The Bermuda slave registers will also be put on line as part of a bigger project developed by genealogy website ancestry.co.uk in the U.K.
Ancestry.co.uk launched the mammoth project in April with details of 100,000 Barbadian slaves and will eventually have information about three million slaves.
Simon Zivani, spokesman for ancestry.co.uk, told the BBC that it would take nine months for the full collection of slave registers to come on line.
Dr. Harris said ancestry. co.uk's website may not be "totally free" and that books will never replace computers.
He said the Museum book will have some commentary and "scholarly editing" to make it user-friendly and there will be a companion CD.
He said the book was a natural progression for the Museum, which already has an exhibit on slavery.
"This is a continuation of our interest in all sections of our community, " he said.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008
Comment by:
deauna
I'm looking for will franklin .I was told
he fought in the civil
war.His wife name was
harriett franklin.This my
grandfather granddad,It
was my grandfather mother
father.I know he was
from bastrop,louisiana
his daughter name is
ruth franklin born
march 4,1901
Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Comment by:
Belva Cole
I am try to write a book for my children and this will help me to be more open in some thing. my great grand mother was a slave and I
would like this site to help me tell them more about slave time.
Thank you for this site
Posted: Saturday, February 09, 2008
Comment by:
Eldred Marquis Smith Sr.
I am Intersted in finding my family from where they are; but first i need to know where we come from. I have many nations inside of me. Africa, Spain, American Indian
How ever the slave connection I am particularly interested in.
thank you for this web site.
Posted: Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Comment by:
charity
i want to know my roots
Posted: Sunday, May 20, 2007
Comment by:
Suzette
This is so well needed and I knew in my heart that one day this would happen. This is so important to our heritiage and backgrounds. Praise the Most High for he is great!
