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*Tracing Your Roots > Caribbean > Tracing Caribbean Roots
* Colindale Newspaper Library, London 
 
I had always been told that slaves usually took the name of the proprietors. I knew that ownership of the property had changed somewhere between 1804 and 1814. The plantation was changed to the Cousin's Cove Sugar Plantation. The Colindale Newspaper Library was most useful. There I found an article, on one of the microfilms, a notice placed in the Gleaner on 17 September 1792 by John Crooks, proprietor to Crooks' Cove sugar plantation. He was hoping to trace the movements of four of his runaway slaves - all African.

There was information in The Royal Gazzette 1811/12 about future proprietors Alexander McCullum and William Dickson. Both served together as jurors to the court in Hanover for at least this period of time. Both are shown to be merchants. Alexander being a junior merchant


Some Advice

  1. Older family members are gatekeepers of the past! Yet they do not disclose everything they know. Keep sharing information with them; they are quick to tell you when you've got something wrong.
  2. Extended family members can clarify or verify information given in oral accounts and provide other vital information to unlocking the past. Share information with family and friends. When word gets around information that you need can often find you.
  3. The story "two brothers from Scotland that came to Jamaica to settle ..." is a story I hear often. Verify everything spoken.
  4. Beware of transcription errors in old documents. Verify everything read.
  5. Background knowledge helped piece together an understanding of the community that existed at Cousins Cove. It is essential if you are to interpret documents. Be familiar with the environmental factors of the period being researched:
    Political
    Social
    Economic
    Technological
    Cultural
  6. Follow your intuition. My Grandfather named his first-born son John Crooks. My hunch was that this was in some way significant. The facts that I subsequently discovered seemed to bear this out.
  7. Keep revisiting researched material as it takes on new significance the more you discover about the PEST C environment. I often found that the things after looking at material more than once. With microfilm readers, it's easy to scroll past vital information - especially when fatigued. I found my grandfathers birth certificate after three separate visits to the LDS to view the same film.
  8. Try not to let it take over your life!
You can visit Paul's website a *www.netcomuk.co.uk/%7Eprcrooks/index

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Contributors: Paul Crooks
Creators: Paul Crooks

 
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