I have written in the past about an unusual surname in my husband’s family tree. The name Canarikin (also Cannarakin, and other variants) appeared in St Kitts as far back as 1707, and was used as a middle name in the family in the later 1800s. I have not found any instances of it as a last name anywhere else.
On a recent visit to the beautiful island of St Kitts, I was able to visit their national archives office in Basseterre. I looked through a few books of deeds and wills, making only a tiny start on going through all their materials. By pure chance, while looking for another family name, I found a will for a man with a very interesting name: Michael Canarakin Maillard Wilson, dated 1881. This pointed to a definite connection between this MCM Wilson and our family ancestors, specifically to a Michael Canarikin Maillard, who I believe is my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather. Our Michael Canarikin was born in 1805 in the Saint Ann, Sandy Point parish of the island. I did further research to see if any connections between the two men could be found.
There was a death record for MCM Wilson, from the Saint Ann parish in 1881:
The will spelled out his middle names. Without that, I would never have known what the CM in the death record stood for. From his listed age, we can estimate his birth year at 1812. The death was reported by his son, Spencer Wilson, who was a clerk living in Sandy Point, Saint Ann parish – Spencer also happened to be the parish registrar at the time, with his signature shown. MCM Wilson’s profession was recorded as a “public officer”. Looking at articles in Kittitian newspapers of the time, he held various positions such as a Revenue Officer and “Clerk to the Quarantine Board”.
So what was the connection between MCM Wilson and the Canarikins and Maillards of my husband’s ancestry? Both families lived in the Saint Ann parish. MC Maillard was born in 1805, and MCM Wilson in about 1812. So Wilson most likely wasn’t named after MC Maillard. Having been born only a few years apart, it would be more likely that there was a relationship between the parents or grandparents of the two men. MC got his name from his great-grandparent Michael Canarakin, a carpenter who was born about 1700. Michael Canarakin’s daughter Catherine Elizabeth married a Maillard. I would think it’s more likely that MCM Wilson was given his name because of his ancestry, not because his parents greatly admired the original Michael Canarakin, a carpenter born a century before.
That leads to the question of MCM Wilson’s ancestry. Civil birth records for St Kitts in the early 1800s don’t exist. Documents that do survive from that time period are the slave registries created by the British government between the years of 1817 and 1834. These can be valuable in many ways, historically and genealogically. In this case, M appeared as a minor who held enslaved people in the 1817 and 1822 registries, with his father Peter Maillard as his guardian. By the 1827 book, he was a proprietor in his own right. MCM Wilson appeared in the 1825 registry, listed with a Mary Wilson, both minors with their guardian Robert Wilson. They appeared again in the 1831 registry, with Robert still their guardian, and Mary with the married name of Richards. The most likely scenario here is that Robert Wilson was the father of MCM and Mary. There were more clues in the list of Robert Wilson’s enslaved people in the 1822 book – a 23 year old cooper named Sam was acquired through a “purchase from John Maillard”, and a 12 year old girl (already listed as a house servant at that young age) was held by Robert Wilson in his capacity as “admin to Michael Maillard”. That Michael Maillard (not MC) was an older man in the Maillard family. These details point to a close relationship between the Maillards and Robert Wilson. It may very well have been a family relationship, perhaps through a maternal Maillard ancestor that could have married into the Wilson family.
There are only hints at this point – the Maillard and Wilson families lived in the same town, had sons at about the same time, and interacted at least on the level of moving enslaved people between them. Of course it’s clear that their connection went beyond that, both naming sons with the same unusual Canarakin middle name.
Sources
- National Archives of St Kitts and Nevis
- Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1817-1834, ancestry.com
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