Norford and Cannonier – trying to link two surnames of Montserrat and St Kitts

There are a number of online sources for genealogical and historical records for the British West Indies, among them the websites familysearch.org, ancestry.com, and the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library. For those able to travel, there are on site archives like the St Kitts and Montserrat National Trust. It’s often necessary to combine resources to piece together a genealogical puzzle.

One valuable online source I’ve found that has been very helpful is a collection of transcriptions on the familysearch website, from old and fragile documents held by the archives of St Kitts. The transcriptions were produced by genealogist Ruth Walker Hunsaker. They include wills, deeds, and transactions involving enslaved people.

One entry that caught my eye was the will of Elizabeth Norford from 1836. I have found a number of connections between the Norford and Cannonier families of St Kitts and Montserrat, and Elizabeth’s will contained mentions of both surnames. The will made it possible to sketch out a partial family tree for Elizabeth:

Elizabeth listed her children and their inheritances:

1. Antoinette Henville who would receive the “compensation money” for one “apprenticed” girl named Margaret – the term apprentice was used for the recently freed enslaved people of the British West Indies, and the money referred to was paid to slave owners at the time of abolition, in order to compensate them for their perceived financial losses. Elizabeth Norford received about £124 for 7 enslaved individuals. The St Kitts slave registry of 1825 listed a mixed race girl named Margaret Ann, aged 2 years and 11 months and born in St Kitts, as held by Elizabeth, which could be the same Margaret.
2. Son Henry Cannonier would receive the compensation for an “apprentice” named Michael.
3. Daughter Mary Cannonier would be given a mourning outfit.
4. Funeral and doctor expenses would be paid for her daughter Ann Cannonier, who died in Antigua.
5. A “sute of morning” was to be given to her son Andrew Cannonier.
6. Another “sute of morning” for her granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Henry.

She named as executors Henry, Mary, and Andrew. The surnames mentioned imply that Elizabeth was at one time married to a Cannonier. Henville would then be a married name for daughter Antoinette, which leaves the granddaughter’s last name of Henry a bit of a mystery, but it’s likely Elizabeth had another daughter who married a Henry. As to the ages of her children, there was an Antoinette Henville who died in St Kitts in 1893, with an estimated birth year of 1813. The son named Andrew is very interesting, as there was a number of Andrew Cannoniers in the history of Montserrat and St Kitts. The most likely identity of this Andrew would be the planter (and vital records registrar) who lived in Dieppe Bay, estimated birth year 1804. who died in 1865. That would put both Antoinette and Andrew in the same generation of Cannoniers living in St Kitts. I’ve seen one record of a Henry Cannonier who would be also the correct age – in a newspaper notice of 1840, Henry was recorded as serving on a jury. There was a Mary Cannonier listed as a slave holder in several of the St Kitts Slave Registry years, who passed ownership of enslaved people between herself and Elizabeth Norford. It would appear that Mary didn’t marry.

So what Cannonier was Elizabeth Norford married to? A distinct possibility was the Andrew Cannonier who came from Montserrat to St Kitts in the early 1800s, owned slaves, and appears to have died between 1825 and 1827 (based on his disappearing from the next Slave Registry year). He would probably be the correct generation for marriage to Elizabeth Norford, and like her, he came from Montserrat originally. He could certainly have a son Andrew (junior). But Elizabeth would then have married a Norford after the death of Andrew Cannonier to have that surname when she wrote her will in 1836. This I’m not so sure fits nicely. Her will states that she was a widow in 1836, so was she married to a Norford only between 1825 and that year? I may have a few more puzzle pieces, but the tree is definitely not done yet.

9/27/2026: Another connection just popped up on the British Newspaper Archives website, from an obituary published in the Antigua Standard of January 17th, 1891. The noticed read:

“NORFORD – At the residence of her son-in-law Mr. H. C. Cannonier at North South Estate on the 31st ultimo Mrs Sarah Rosevelt, deeply lamented by relatives and friends.”

This would reference Henry Charles Cannonier, a planter who worked for decades in St Kitts, but seems to have relocated to Antigua after his bankruptcy in the mid 1880s. According to his death certificate, he died in 1918, and was born about 1840. The obituary said that Sarah Rosevelt Norford was his mother-in-law, so we can assume her daughter married Henry Charles. The implication is that Henry married a Norford (unnamed in the paper unfortunately), although it’s also possible that his wife was born to Sarah Norford by a previous marriage. In any case, another Cannonier – Norford connection. And an interesting (I assume middle) name of Rosevelt for the mother-in-law. Sadly, Sarah’s death record from Antigua provides almost no additional information – her death was reported by a local laborer (not a relative), and her age was given, most unhelpfully, as “old”. Her racial classification was “colored”, meaning mixed race, so we can assume Henry’s wife was also.

Sources

1. Familysearch catalog for St Kitts and Nevis
2. Ancestry.com
3. British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme
4. National Archives of St Kitts and Nevis (link currently broken)
5. Montserrat National Trust
6. Ruth Walker Husaker collection of transcribed documents
7. familysearch St Kitts Wills from Government Deed Registries, Series 3 & 4, Book 2, Elizabeth Norford will on page 359
8. Centre for the Legacies of British Slavery database, University College London 2026
9. Ancestry.com Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834
10. The British Newspaper Archives – holds historic newspapers from St Kitts