General Chat

Maggie, I think I remember being told a while back that they rotate the info available on the IGI, dunno how true that is though.

I really want a trip to the carribean now, need to save some pennies LOL. Anyone wanna buy my parents house, they've had no viewings since June!

Well, we all go in with some sort of expectation, I guess, so it's no surprise that being a black man he would expect to be descended from slaves.

I guess the loose ties that we see are probably tied up for them but at the end of the day they have to decide what they put on the show. They must cut an awful lot. But it always makes me grumble that they make the search look so damn easy. (And yeah, Janet, I'd also love to go to Barbados to search the IGI...tough life, eh? LOL)

Amazing how he managed to find the Harriotts on the IGI as well - I have tried for years to find a James Croyle, who according to the 1901 census was born in Barbados.
Have just tried the IGI again - apparently there were no 'Croyles' in Barbados at all!! There were some last time I looked!!

No, it wasn't Priscilla who was the (presumed) prostitute/property owner, that was Racheal Hunte (mother of James Hunte the policeman).

Julie Ann, I believe the slaves were given the surname of their owners. What I didn't understand and wasn't explained was how the daughter of a Davy and Briggs could be a Smith?!

I do wish when they put the trees up that they used a similar set up to when they did it for Heir Hunters. It would be so much more helpful if they put the dates on them.

Maggie, it's hard to say what sort of man he was. After all, it's hard to fight an upbringing where you're taught from the age of 4 to own other people. Perhaps his own heritage sickened him? Hard to say. Also, she may have been black but, just how black was she? She probably actually saw him as a bit of a catch, you have to wonder what he did after emancipation really.

I don't think I've ever really been ashamed by the British Empire's history before, but I did feel it tonight.

i was shocked when he swore

i was like, aaarrrrrrrr sharp intake of breath,

i mean i swear myself so i dont know why , well not in work, and not in certain company,think it was just unexpected

If only someone would fly me to Jamaica to look at the IGI online!
Seriously though, I was hoping I might get some pointers as to what to do when i start on my OHs tree. His Mum's from Trinidad but from Bombay roots but sadly it wasn't to be. I guess I'll stick to his Father whose family comes from Bombay via Mauritius. No on second thoughts I'll stick to my own tree!
I guess it must be a shock when you find out that you have slave owners in your tree but at the end of the day your ancestors are the people who make you who you are. No ones asking you to accept that what they did was right. Hell, I'm sure mine probably did loads of stuff that I wouldn't be proud of but thats with the benefit of hindsight.

Rachael Hunte owned 9 properties (on the edge of the 'red light district') which passed to her son the constable! As she was free the choice was hers.

If I remember correctly the bap. records said reputed son of........put 2 and 2 together!!

Briggs - single man and as was said he had pick of the crop - would have said the bonus was an extra rather than an incentive.
After saying plaque to slave owner should be left to rot he then finds out he is actually descended from one!!

He made much of his g.gfather being ambitious but nothing basically of his part in Africa and helping to put down an uprising of the people of Sierra Leone.

Twists and turns everywhere. Horrific but they were the times then that a 4yr old child is taught to buy and sell slaves and possibly to increase his holdings by natural means but let us not forget in 19th century we were sending boys up chimneys and if they did not move quickly lit a fire under them

Thanks SS - so Priscilla probably 'did it' willingly - a bit harder to accept.

Do you think he should have chased up the ownership of all that property? the house at the end, which had been left....they did not make clear if it was still in the hands of the'harriet' family..... he may be entitled to claim it... left to many loose ends for me........

i got a bit confused with some of it, i dont know how he kept track, but that man who was the slave owner in the begining had same name as the mother of the child, so it seemed like it was the owners daughter at first, but ended up the childs father was working for the man as overseer

Oh, Kemp, you're right, just checked the advance guide on digi box and it's not. Still, will be available on the iplayer. Great resource, they stay on there for a week.

I think they said that Priscilla was black. She would have been a free woman as it was 20something years after emancipation, so of course by then he wouldn't have been a slave owner. I think the difference is that Briggs (the overseer) would have been doing it for financial incentives, that's a little harder to accept, I think. It's one thing if he's just a bit of a lad, but if he's taking advantage of his position for what money he can get extra from his boss...that's hard to swallow. But, like you say, he's as much an ancestor as the slaver and slave were.

Summer we arent sure if it is on tomorrow coz I cant find it in the listings and Heather pointed out earlier that the paraolympics is on .......

I thought it strange that he accepted the overseer had 'had his way' with the female slaves, but couldn't accept that Priscilla (who I believe was a free woman) had 'had it off' with a slave owner.
Wasn't quite sure whether Priscilla was black or white either, they didn't explain the colour gradients in Barbados. Was it the same as in Jamaica or did a white father constituted a white child in Barbados nomatter what colour the mother was?

It's repeated tomorrow on BBC2, I think, or you can watch it on the BBC iplayer (google it).

I found it very interesting, from one extreme to the other. You just wouldn't know what to feel if you found out that your 3XGGrandmother was a slave but your 2XGGrandfather (and his father) were slave owners, would you? I wonder if it would make him rethink how he thought of Briggs (the 4XGreat Grandfather)? You can feel shame for the things your ancestors did, but at the end of the day, they're as much a part of who we are as the great and good ones are. You could almost imagine how impressive that house must have been once upon a time, quite sad but fitting to see it in the state of disrepair. And just goes to show that those stories (Calcutta connection) that are passed down aren't always right.

I thoroughly enjoyed the programme. What a journey!

So interesting,yet sad for Ainsley to find out,not only that his ancestors were abused slaves but that on his grandfather's line they were white masters! and sickening to hear of the young boy 'learning' how to buy and sell slaves.

......but would he really want to live in the house that had brought sorrow to others' lives?

realy enjoyed it, fely sorry for him at times

yeah i had thought why not he buy that house and do it up nicely himself

isnt he

its a shame we never saw him with his family at the end, his kids his wife