Jamaica’s record-keeping began in 1661. This was six years after an English fleet under Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables conquered the island from the Spanish settlers.
The Early Colonial Keeper of the Records
The office of the Island Secretary of English/British colonial Jamaica was the entity responsible for the island’s record-keeping and administration of its parishes (the local units of administration) from 1659 to 1879. The first secretary arrived on the island in 1661. The types of early records preserved by law by the Island Secretary’s office included:
- Official government state papers and laws of the island.
- The administration of the Jamaican parishes
- Church of England registrations of baptisms/births, marriages, burials/deaths
- The status and later the registration of the enslaved African population
- Records of the ownership and conveyance of land and enslaved people
- Deeds, wills, probate, inventories, and property administration
Many of the records and record-keeping and administrative functions of the office are now maintained by at the IRO of the RGD. Other records are at the Jamaica Archives.
Evolution of the Record-keeping
Today’s keepers of Jamaica’s records evolved from the original holdings of the office of the Island Secretary. In 1879, the colonial government abolished the office and created the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) in Spanish Town, St Catherine parish. The Department was made the record-keeping arm of the island. The RGD is currently the keeper of Jamaica’s baptism, birth, marriage, death, and burial (BMD) records, and several other collections that are important for Jamaican genealogy and history research.
Now located in Twickenham Park, St Catherine since 1996, the RGD has two sections. The first section, the Island Records Office (IRO), was created in 1879. The second, the General Register Office (GRO), was fully established in 1880 and manages the current system of government civil registrations of births, marriages, and deaths.
The Island Records Office
When the Island Secretary’s office was abolished in 1879, the records and most of its record-keeping functions were transferred to the Island Records Office (IRO) section of the RGD. The IRO/RGD is the repository for the following records:
- The Register Transcripts or Copy Registers of baptism, birth, marriage, burials, and death (BMD) registrations from the Jamaican Church of England Diocese (1664-1870)
- Law 6 BMD Registers (1871-1880)
- Transcripts of BMD registrations from the Dissenter churches
- Indexes created for the Registers
- Original hand-written wills (1725-1882) recorded in the District Courts/Resident Magistrate Courts and the Supreme Court
- Will Books with transcriptions of original wills recorded in the courts starting in1661
- Indexes to the Will Books
- The original Jamaica government law books, starting in 1689
- Some of the early records of the following:
- Deed books of sales and gifts of land and enslaved people
- Property and slave conveyances
- Land patents/grants
- Property mortgages
You can register deeds and wills at the IRO as well as do your own research to find records for your ancestors.
The Jamaica Archives
The Jamaica Archives in Spanish Town, St Catherine also evolved from the original holdings of the Island Secretary’s office and the courts that were deposited at the IRO starting in 1879. In 1955, the government created an Archives section of the Island Records Office from some of the IRO’s inventory. The Archives division was renamed the Jamaica Archives in 1962 when the historical records of the several courts of Jamaica were added to its holdings. Then in 1982, the Jamaica Archives was spun off from the IRO and became an independent government department.
The Jamaica Archives was renamed the Jamaica Archives and Records Department (JARD) in the late 1980s with the addition of responsibility for the management of government and other historically important records. The Government Records Centre was established in Kingston and the Jamaica Archives unit remained in Spanish Town in a facility that had been built in 1962. When the RGD moved to Twickenham Park in 1996, the Jamaica Archives remained in Spanish Town. The archival records at the Jamaica Archives today include the following:
- Colonial government official state papers and records of the laws of Jamaica
- Surviving records of the Parish Vestries, Municipal and Local Boards, and Parish Councils (1735-1978)
- The surviving original Jamaica Church of England (Anglican) Parish BMD Registers – removed from the local churches in 1879 to the newly-created IRO.
- Some of the original Dissenter churches’ baptism and marriage records for some parishes – also removed from the churches in 1879
- Duplicate Dissenter church records from the Jewish Synagogues, the United Congregation of Israelites, and the Society of Friends (Quakers)
- The Manumission Registers (1747-1838): Records of deeds granted to free enslaved people and the release of others from apprenticeship
- Copies of Jamaica’s Slave Registers (1817-1834)
- Trials of enslaved people
- Deeds of sales, purchases, and conveyances of enslaved people
- Lists of property owners, census information, and lists of inhabitants
- Land deeds and property conveyances
- Land patent books (1662-1826): Records of land granted by the corn Crown to early settlers
- Land Plat books (1661-1755): Records of the survey of the lands granted
- Plantation cadastral maps
- Estate crop accounts (Accounts Produce)
- Letters Testamentary: Grants legal right to the executor or administrator named in a will to administer the affairs of the estate
- Letters of Administration (1715-1825): Legal right granted to someone to administer an estate in the absence of an executor to a will
- Records of powers of attorney
- Estate Inventories: (1675-1837)
- The historical records of the courts (1676-1947)
Other records at the Jamaica Archives include:
- Private family correspondence and journals of historical value
- Other private papers and records of historical value
- Plantation estate journals and accounts (1715-2006) donated to the Archives, such as the Worthy Park Estate papers
- Ship manifests, immigration, and naturalizations
Sources
- The Registrar General’s Department: https://www.rgd.gov.jm/
- The Jamaica Archives and Records Department: https://www.jard.gov.jm/
- History of the JARD: https://www.jard.gov.jm/pages/history
- Jamaican Family Search: http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/
- The Records of Jamaica, Noel B. Livingston: Caribbeana, Vol 1. Pp 135-137: https://original-ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/UF00075409/00001/156