MY BOOKS

Jamaican Genealogy Research: A Concise Guide to the Best Resources

Numerous people of Jamaican descent worldwide are looking for help to research their ancestry and build their family tree. This practical book is a detailed collection of the major Jamaican genealogy resources. I compiled them during more than 20 years of researching my own family’s ancestry. The guide makes it easier for researchers worldwide to find the various types of records of Jamaica online or in repositories. Readers will learn how to access baptism/birth, marriage, and burial/death (BMD) records, the mainstay of genealogy research. Chapters include where to locate Jamaica’s land patents and deeds; land surveys and maps; sales and conveyances of land enslaved African people; wills and other legal records; partial censuses, and lists of inhabitants; immigration, emigration, and military records; and other historical documents. Other chapters explore the history of Jamaica's record-keeping, the island's multiethnic history, and the complex British colonial history of sugar and slavery, wars and rebellions, and pirates and piracy,