How much do you know about your ancestors? Not the general national ones, but your own personal family ones? How did you come to have your surname? What is its historical origin? Researching Your Jamaican Family is about you, about discovering more about yourself and your family. The more you can find out about yourself the deeper you will be able to 'root' yourself. In these days when family members are becoming more scattered throughout the world, it is all the more necessary to keep in touch with each other. This book will guide you in drawing up a family tree, in researching your family history and genealogy and in sharing the information with other family members. The research can be both informative and exciting and therefore worthwhile. There may be pleasant surprises or some disappointments or both… but the search will be stimulating and challenging. The language is conversational and straightforward, and makes for easy reading. This makes the book suitable for children 10 years old and over, as well as for adults. Researching Your Jamaican Family seeks to encourage the novice to collect family history information without having to do extensive academic research. It also encourages the ongoing collection of family history for future generations, thus making it a combination of a 'how to' with relevant historical information about ethnic groups that make up the society. The authors present this historical data from a new and personal perspective, hoping that a lively interest in history, often regarded as a collection of dull dates and events, will be generated. The book consists of two main parts - 'Drawing up a Family Tree' and 'Compiling a Family History'. First, it provides a guide for collecting all the information needed to draw up a family tree. It includes sources of information (mainly oral, but a few written) which may be in the possession of family members. It suggests designs for family trees but leaves the reader free to design/create one. The guide gives methods of sharing the family tree, for example, at family gatherings and/or at specially arranged family reunions, and outlines steps for planning and staging such reunions. Secondly, it addresses the more time-consuming task of researching and writing such a history. It provides information on name origins, places of origin of the Jamaican ancestors, and historical notes on selected matters that have affected family life over the centuries. The presentation is made in several forms - tables, maps, photographs and text.