By: Valencia Ellis

Original Goal: Who is

My Grandfather?

My goal was to find stories and information about

Samuel Reid ( My Grandfather) surrounding his life

and death.
Bring him back to life through words and photos
since he died when my mother was 3 years old.
Provide a sense of closure for both my mother and
myself.

Initial Research

To start my research, I :
1. Interviewed my Grandmother via phone

2. Input the information I obtained into

Free online Genealogy tools

What I Used

Ancestry.com

Grandmother
(Most Valuable
Primary
Resource)

Jamaica Genealogy

Roots Web

What My Grandmother
Knew

Born in St. Anns Bay, Jamaica in 1936

Well liked by community
Built homes for a living
Had his only children with my
grandmother. ( 4 children if she hadnt
miscarried due to stress after his
death)
Died in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966 after
being hit by a truck while riding his
bike to the market

What the Genealogy

Websites Knew

Get the picture?

Why Cant I Find My

Grandfather?

New Take on Inquiry Project:

Was the lack of public records in Jamaica in the 60s to blame?
Do the privacy policies of Online Genealogy tools play a role?
What was going on in Jamaica in the 60s that made my grandfathers
story irrelevant?
Why would it be hard to find people who knew him, perhaps living
friends?
If I could find those friends, where would they be?
When did they migrate and why were they migrating?

Privacy Policies

What a person can find about a relative on any

online genealogy tool is based on:
What an individual uploads to the site as a user
Access to public records.
1. None of my family has information to upload to the
genealogy sites.
2. Public records were almost nonexistent around that
time frame in Jamaica.
Those two points explain why the genealogy tools had

Get the picture?

Jamaican Immigration

In the 60s , Jamaicans were migrating to the following places.

Parts of the United Kingdom (Most popular area: London )
Parts of Canada (More popular areas such as Toronto and
Ontario)
The United States ( Florida, New York, New Jersey)
This info gave me an idea of where people who knew my
grandfather would be.

Census Data Reveals

As of 2010:
965,355 Jamaicans live in the U.S
New York: 305,285 ( Highest
population of Jamaica-born
residents)
Florida: 246,478
New Jersey: 55,351

Jamaica in the 60s: Why

They Were Migrating

Socio economic issues

Lack of economic diversity

Planation agriculture
Poor land distribution
High unemployment statistics

Jamaica in the 60s: Why They

Were Migrating (cont.)

McCarran Walter Act: Discriminated against black

immigrants and only permitted 100 Jamaicans into
the U.S annually.
Passed in the 60s during the time of my Grandfathers
death
Due to the act, a larger number of Jamaicans migrated
to Britain instead of migrating to the U.S.
Makes tracking those who knew my grandfather hard;
they could have stayed in Jamaica, or decided to
migrate.

What Surprised Me

No info being available about my grandfather via

online genealogy tools.
Although public records werent great, Im sure they
exist.

What Intrigued Me

The correlation between migration and immigration

patterns in reaction to what was happening in
Jamaica at the time.
Ex: After McCarran Walter Act= Less Migration to
America, More migration to UK/Canada
End Result: Today, More Jamaicans live in the UK
than they do in America.

What Disturbed Me

The impact that socioeconomic issues in Jamaica had on

making my grandfathers death irrelevant to the media
I feel like a lot of people didnt get the closure or
documentation they deserved pertaining to their personal lives
due to the turmoil caused by their corrupt government.

Officer, I told
you we have no
funding for
Police
Operations

In Conclusion

Lack of public records and Jamaican migration play a huge

role in stunting the process of me finding information about
my grandfather.
Finding people who knew him would be difficult because:
He was born during significant waves of migration from
Jamaica
He died during times of political turmoil.

In the future, I intend on continuing the search for my

grandfather through travel, potentially creating a story from
my findings.