The Caribbean Family History Society was established to support people who were researching, or considering researching their family history in the Caribbean. My name is Linford Sweeney and I am the founder of the Society. My own interest began in the 1980s when my mother provided me with some interesting information about our family. She was able to tell me about her grandmother and two further generations beyond this. However, it wasn't until 1991, on a visit to Jamaica (the place of my birth), that I took a serious interest in carrying out some research. It started with my cousin, who was then in her eighties, and who, although very ill, agreed to see me. The last time she had seen me was in 1964 when I left with my mother to join my father in Manchester, England. The questioning went something like this:

 

"Miss Thelma, could you tell me something about the Sweeney family?". She went on to tell me about the Irish family that had lived in the area and the whole history of the descendants of these people. What intrigued me most was that the descendants, whose ancestors were Irish and white, grew progressively more African in their features as the years went by. We now had people of many different shades of both black and white. I came away with a good knowledge of the history of the family, but most of all with a list of names of ancestors and the lineage right down to today. Since then I have been carrying out research, in my spare time, and continue to do so today.

 

That earlier experience has also led me to find out more about my mother's family. I have ended up finding out that one of my ancestors, born about 1790, was brought to the Caribbean from Africa. He was enslaved by the British in Africa, travelled across the Atlantic to Jamaica, and was then sold to a plantation owner in Clarendon, Jamaica. He worked on the Suttons Plantation for many years, had a son who then went on to experience Emancipation and freedom in 1834. My great-grandfather was born about 1848, about the same time as his future wife, Johannah. She was born on 3rd December 1848, baptised 1851, married three times, and gave birth to my grandmother in 1886, before dying peacefully in 1948.