Like Oprah, im trying to find out about my African roots.But i dont know where to start. Do you have an idea?

Question

I was born and raised in Canada but my parents are from the West Indies.

Answer 1

There are records in the West Indies that would give you a good idea. The easy part is that you know they were from the West Coast of Africa, and usually from that part of the coast stretching from Sierra Leone in the north to Angola in the south...with the majority being from the region around Guinea. The reason that I dismiss most being from the East Coast of Africa is that those ended up in Portuguese colonies, and particularly Brazil. The Spanish and English pulled primarily from the West. The Congo, Angola and Senegal were decimated by slave trading.

There are records still in the West Indies. It's no surprise that your family moved from the West Indies to Canada because Canada has had a long kinship with the West Indies going back to their relationship as the largest of all English colonies. So they were something of a protector of the small British and one-time Spanish colonies in the Caribbean.

If you know which island they were from, it makes tracking actual records easier. Many people will rush to suggest you do a DNA test, but they're not the cure-all that Oprah made them sound like they are. Since there is such a dense African population in the West Indies coming from so many parts of Africa, you can only find out where your mother's maternal lineage traces to through women back to the beginning of known DNA samples. You can't find all of the countries that all of your ancestors came from, nor can you put names to these people. But if you can spend a week researching down there (does sound appealing in December, eh?) then you can likely go all the way back to the actual slave sale records.

The only caveat is that some of the islands are better at preserving records than are others. Here's a great article from one of the British magazines specializing in library and archives issues. It highlights the problems with preserving records in countries that can't afford air-conditioned, climate controlled facilities. http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/2006/small.html

Answer 2

Talk to your parents and grandparents first to get names of great grandparents and even great, great grandparents if they know them. Then, start checking census records in the West Indies - often these will show where people came from originally - it will give a country and year. Then check ship records in the West Indies that coincide with that year.

Answer 3

go to the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, and get on their web site for the West Indies. They have a vast genealogical data base as they believe that to be saved one must know their ancestors.

Answer 4

Africans who were brought over to the New World as slaves originally hailed from West Africa . . . mostly places in the neighborhood of modern-day Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon. You can take a DNA test like she did to find out what yours is and which area in West Africa it is commonly found in.

Answer 5

Start talking with your parents about where they are from,then talk to your grand parents,aunts,uncles.