Grenada Emigration and Immigration

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Grenada

Emigration and Immigration

How to Find Records

Online Records

• 1817-1834 Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 (1817-1834 for Grenada), at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
• 1737-1845 Grenada Plantation Records 1737-1845 includes some inventories of slaves (last dated 1834, when slavery was outlawed) include information about illness, cause of death, first names, ages, and sometimes country of origin, color and conspicuous marks (such as amputations) and scars. Details about the collection

Grenada Family Records Centre

The Grenada Family Records Centre (GFRC) is jointly run by the Grenada Register Office (GRO) and Grenada National Archives. The GFRC provides access to some of the most important sources for family history research in Grenada, including births, marriages and deaths and census returns.

The Grenada Family Records Centre
Ministry of Education Building
Botanical Gardens, Tanteen
St. George’s, Grenada, W.I.

• Contact Information

Grenada Emigration and Immigration

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Background

• French settlement and colonization began in 1649 and continued for the next century. In 1649, a French expedition of 203 men from Martinique founded a permanent settlement on Grenada. The economy was initially based on sugar cane and indigo, worked by African slaves.[
• On 10 February 1763, Grenada was ceded to the British under the Treaty of Paris. British rule continued until 1974 (except for a period of French rule between 1779 and 1783).
• As Grenada's economy grew, more and more African slaves were forcibly transported to the island. Britain eventually outlawed the slave trade within the British Empire in 1807, and slavery was completely outlawed in 1833, leading to the emancipation of all enslaved by 1838.[20][29] In an effort to ameliorate the subsequent labour shortage, migrants from India were brought to Grenada in 1857.
• A majority of Grenadians (82%) are descendants of the enslaved Africans. A small percentage of descendants of indentured workers from India were brought to Grenada between 1857 and 1885, predominantly from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Today, Grenadians of Indian descent constitute 2.2% of the population. There is also a small community of French and English descendants. The rest of the population is of mixed descent (13%).

Scots

"Grenada, known for intensive sugar and cotton production, was the most attractive of the [Caribbean] islands to investors, and it is estimated that the number of Europeans there rose from 1,225 in 1763 to 1,661 in 1773. The majority were British, but Highland and Lowland Scots represented twenty-one per cent of all landowners (fifty-seven per cent of British ones) by 1772, and possessed roughly forty per cent of all land planted in sugar and coffee."

Indian Arrival Day

• Indian Arrival Day is a holiday celebrated on various days in the nations of the Caribbean, Fiji, and Mauritius, commemorating the arrival of people from the Indian subcontinent to their respective nation as indentured labour brought by European colonial authorities and their agents.
• On 29 April 2009, the Government of Grenada declared that the 1st of May would officially be designated as Indian Arrival Day. The Government also announced that Boucherie Road, the road leading to the site of the arrival of the Maidstone, would be officially renamed Maidstone Road to honor the arrival of Indians in Grenada. On 2 May 2009. Governor General Sir Carlyle Glean unveiled a granite plaque commemorating the arrival of the first Indians in Grenada. The plaque bears the inscription, "On 1st May 1857, in this bay the sailing vessel "Maidstone" anchored and landed 287 passengers having left India three months earlier, with 304 passengers. Between the years 1857 and 1890 other ships anchored in this and other bays bringing a total of 3,200 persons from India to work as agricultural indentured labourers in Grenada. This monument is dedicated to those who became the genesis of the Indo-Grenadian population of our nation".
• Currently there are over 12,000 Grenadians of Indian and mixed-Indian descent (11% of the total population).

Emigration from Grenada

• Grenada, like many of the Caribbean islands, is subject to a large amount of out-migration, with a large number of young people seeking more prospects abroad. Popular migration points for Grenadians include more prosperous islands in the Caribbean (such as Barbados), North American Cities (such as New York City, Toronto and Montreal), the United Kingdom (in particular, London and Yorkshire) and Australia.
• 9,783 Grenadian-born people were recorded by the 2001 UK Census.
• Since 1984, nearly 850 Grenadians arrive legally in the United States each year, and the number of Grenadian Americans was 25,924 in 2000. They began immigrating to the US primarily from 1950. Between 2007 and 2011, there were approximately 30,320 Grenadian-born residents in the United States.

Emigration

One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country and/or state of destination..

Barbados Emigration and Immigration New York Emigration and Immigration Quebec Emigration and Immigration (for Montreal) England Emigration and Immigration Scotland Emigration and Immigration Australia Emigration and Immigration

Finding the Town of Origin

In order to research your family in their "old" country, it is essential that you have identified the place where they came from. You must know the city, town, or parish that they came from. If you are using emigration or immigration records primarily to determine town of origin, know that there are other records and strategies which may also help. The balance of this article will explain those options.

Important Tips

You must also know enough about the ancestor to positively identify him in the records. Dates (even if they are approximate), places, and familial connections are key to helping you decide if a person you find, who has the same name as your ancestor, really is your ancestor.

• Do you know the name of his/her parents?
• Do you know his/her birth, marriage, or death date or can you calculate an approximate range of years to search for his/her birth, marriage, or death?
• Do you know the name of the spouse? Did they marry before or after coming to the United States?
• Do you know the names of any of his/her siblings?
• Do you know the names of any children born in before the family emigrated?

Search Home Sources

Thoroughly go over all home sources available to you, including family history papers, copies of records, pictures, old letters (i.e. with an old address), family bibles, journals/diaries, copies of vital record certificates and church records, memorabilia, etc. Interview extended family and close relatives as well as former neighbors--all of which may prove very helpful in gathering as much knowledge about an ancestor as possible.

• Collecting Previous Research by Others Part One: Home and Relative Sources
• Gather Family Information

Emigration Questions to Ask Relatives

Find the oldest living relatives that you can and ask them:

What do you know about our first ancestor to come from Grenada? (open-ended) Have you ever heard mention of towns in Grenada where the family lived? Do you have contact with any relatives in Grenada? Do you have contact with other branches of the family in other countries? When _____________ came from Grenada, did he travel with other family members? Do you know when _________________ arrived and which port city? Did _______________ever become a citizen?

Did_________________fight in World War I or II? When they first came, were there already family members here who they joined? Did_______________ever mention their parents in Grenada? Were they Catholic? Do you have any old letters or postcards from Grenada family? Do you have any pictures of family members in Grenada?

Search Genealogies Compiled by Others

• Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Two: Online Family Tree Collections
• Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Three: Digitized Books
• Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Four: FamilySearch Wiki Tools

Indexed Records Created in Grenada

Make Sure You Found the Correct Entry for Your Ancestor

There are many types of indexed records that cover parts, even large parts of Grenada. Searching those indexes by name only can turn up several entries of the same name. Never jump to an immediate conclusion that you have found an entry that matches your ancestor. Study the information for other clues that verify the match.

• Make sure the person you found in Grenadian records left Grenada. Look for them in marriage and death records of the same vicinity. See whether they have children a generation later in the vicinity. These things prove they remained in Grenada and would rule them out as your ancestor.
• Match any other relationships. If you already know the parents' names, spouse's name, and/or siblings' names, make sure they match the parents' names, spouse's name, and/or siblings' names of the person you are considering in the Grenadian records. The parents and grandparents will usually be listed in birth records found in church records or civil records. Search for siblings' birth records and any marriage before leaving Grenada in the same index.
• Study all available entries for that name born at the same approximate time, not just the first possible match you see.
• Consider the coverage of the database you are using. Does it cover all of Grenada? Or could there be many other records not covered that could hold your ancestor's record. For example, if the database is for just one province, there are 110 other provinces which could have your ancestor's record.
• Make sure the details you have learned about the person after they immigrate have no discrepancies with the person you found in Grenadian records.

Grenada Records Databases to Try

• Grenada Guided Research
• Grenada Civil Registration, government birth, marriage, and death records are available online for many provinces from the early 1800s to the early or mid-1900s. These records can name grandparents in addition to parents, and towns for residence and/or birth for both.
• There are several Grenada Church Records online.

Records of the Country of Destination

• Church Records: If your ancestor immigrated to a European or a South American/Hispanic country, church records can be detailed enough to identify a former residence or birthplace in the home country. These countries, unlike the United States, had state churches. In many countries, these state churches were used by the country to keep birth, marriage, and death records. Even though your ancestor was born in his former country, he may have married, and certainly died in his new country. Marriage and death records can state birthplace.
• Civil Registration: Eventually, most governments began keeping birth, marriage, and death records. These tend to be quite detailed. Again, if your ancestor was possibly married and certainly died in their new country, those records can state birthplace.
• Citizenship Records: If your ancestor became a full citizen, those records probably name birthplace and former residence.
• Online Genealogy Records: See Online Genealogy Records by Location and find the online genealogy record page for your country to see other indexed collections that can be consulted.

Records to Search Created in the United States

• U. S. Immigration Records: Finding the Town of Origin

For Further Reading

• Grenadian Americans
• Grenada Heritage: From the Caribbean back to Scotland
• How to look for records of… West Indian colonies before 1782