Published September 16, 2020
In the mid 1980s, my husband’s Kittitian grandmother sketched a quick family tree of her ancestors. On her maternal side, she wrote a few minimal facts… her grandfather was a Cannonier, whose family came from France or Italy, she thought, and her grandmother was labeled only “Cabral, Madeira”. We also…
Read More Tracing an ancestor from Madeira to the West Indies
Published July 22, 2020
I’ve written several blog posts regarding the Cannoniers of St Kitts. My husband’s great grandmother was Margaret Johanna Cannonier, born in 1868, daughter of a planter on the Lamberts sugar estate. Her father was John Henry Cannonier, about whom little is known. He was born about 1832, married Madeiran Eliza…
Read More A Cannonier connection to newspaper publishing?
Published April 22, 2020
I’ve written about a branch of my husband’s West Indian family tree that includes Edgar Oscar Challenger, an historian, scholar, and labor leader from St Kitts. My hubbie is related to the Challenger family through his 3rd great grandparents from the island of Madeira. There’s another Edgar O. Challenger who…
Read More He died in harness
Published January 26, 2020
Always looking for new sources of records for my husband’s ancestors from St Kitts, I recently found a treasure trove of old records digitized on the Family Search website, for a small island just off the coast of St Kitts. St Eustatius (aka Statia) sits about 5 miles west of…
Read More A tiny island at the crossroads of the world
Published December 6, 2019
New York City death records can provide a wealth of genealogical information. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to locate the death certificate of my husband’s 2nd great-grandmother, Ann Marie Richardson. Ann Marie came to NYC from St Kitts about 1900, with several of her adult children. She was part of…
Read More A renaissance man in Harlem
Published June 29, 2019
My husband’s great uncle (who he grew up calling grandpa) was a Mallalieu, born in St Kitts in 1919. His middle name was Mumford, which would be considered unusual by most Americans today, but in his Kittitian family, it wasn’t the first occurrence. There was an earlier family member who…
Read More Crossed paths of Mumford and Mallalieu
Published March 31, 2019
While trying to reconstruct the history of family from Saint Kitts, I sometimes look at records in the Former British Colonial Dependencies Slave Registers. They can not only give clues to enslaved people, but also their slave owners. My husband’s third great-grandmother, Catherine Fasioux, was living in St Kitts in the early 1800s, where…
Read More Trying to make sense of slave registers
Published February 16, 2019
As a follow up to the blog post regarding an Andrew Cannonier of St Kitts, I have fallen down a rabbit hole with another Andrew Cannonier, who left the beautiful island of St Christopher and jumped, with both feet, into life as an American. I have found multiple Andrew Cannoniers…
Read More Jumping in with both feet
Published January 19, 2019
There are challenges researching the family tree for a surname like Smith or Jones, but it can be equally difficult to trace back an unusual last name. My husband’s great grandmother from St Kitts was born Margaret Johanna Cannonier (1868-1940), and I have been trying to make sense of how…
Read More Cannonier – what’s in a name?
Published August 7, 2018
Among the surnames of the St Kitts branch of my husband’s family tree is Maillard. Ann Francis Catherine Maillard (1828-1919) his 2nd great-grandmother, married William Mallalieu. William and Ann lived in the parish of Saint Ann, located on the northern half of the island. Curious about how far back the Maillards may…
Read More St Kitts land grab