Discover Caribbean connections this Findmypast Friday

This week’s Findmypast Friday update sees the release of valuable Caribbean records that have been preserved thanks to a special British Library project along with millions of historical British newspaper pages.

Turks & Caicos Life Events

Exclusive to Findmypast, discover thousands of family records from The Turks & Caicos islands spanning 1792 to 1947. This includes

• Over 16,900 Turks & Caicos births & baptisms, 1792-1934
• Over 4,800 Turks & Caicos marriages, 1799-1940
• Over 6,400 Turks & Caicos deaths & burials, 1804-1947

These new indexes have been created in partnership with the British Library’s Endangered Archives Project which imaged the archipelago’s surviving registers held at the Turks & Caicos National Museum. Many of these precious documents, as the name of the project indicates, were in poor condition and at risk of being lost having been damaged by damp and flooding.

Now indexed and available to search online for the first time, each of the three collections forms a valuable resource for anyone exploring the history of the islands and their people. As well as essential names, dates and locations, each transcript also links through to the original source image on the Endangered Archives Project website.

A British Overseas Territory in the West Indies, the first British settlers on the Turks & Caicos were thought to have been Bermudian salt collectors who arrived in the second half of the 17th century. Following the American War of Independence, many loyalists fled to the Caribbean and from the 1780s, brought large numbers of African Slaves to Turks & Caicos to work as forced labour in newly established cotton plantations as well as the islands salt industry. The surnames of some of those Loyalists, such as James Misick, John McIntosh and Wade Stubbs, are now frequent among descendants of their slaves.

These new records also shed light on the history and legacy of slavery on the islands. Many records, such as the 1826 baptism of two-year-old Kate Wynns, include stark notes such as “slave belonging to Mr Thos Wynns”.

Newspapers

A variety of new additions from London are hot of the press this week. The latest new titles added to Findmypast’s growing newspaper archive include:

• Chelsea & Pimlico Advertiser covering 1860-1863 and 1865-1866
• East London Advertiser covering 1862-1866
• Kingsland Times and General Advertiser covering 1860 and 1862-1863
• West London Times covering 1860-1861, 1863-1864 and 1866-1867
• Westminster Times covering 1863

While additional pages have been added to the following ten publications:

• Albion from 1852
• Birkenhead News from 1914
• British Banner from 1850-1851, 1854 and 1856
• Croydon Times from 1934-1947, 1950 and 1952-1961
• Daily Director and Entr’acte from 1860
• Daily News (London) from 1922-1923, 1925 and 1927
• Limerick Reporter from 1849
• Liverpool Daily Post from 1858-1859
• Morning Herald (London) from 1808
• Sheffield Independent from 1929