The “Gentlemen of Jones”

As my loyal readers (both of you) will recall, I am going through a boxload of old pictures from my grandparent’s house in St. Croix.  While many pictures are of family and friends (and I know who they are now!) many are of the island, the island people, and events.  Some were sent to my family but most were taken by my grandfather, Ludvig Conrad. To date, I have scanned over 1,400 pictures from that box. 

While I was going through them for initial edits and labeling I ran across this picture. Written on the back it clearly said “Gentlemen of Jones”. 

An Early Christmas Present from the CGL



Page from the St Croix Passenger List-1797

I got a Christmas present this year from the Caribbean Genealogy Library. Robert Upson of the CGL sent me DVDs containing high resolution images of 1,115 pages of registers of persons arriving and leaving Christiansted from 1797-1847.  Thank you Robert and the CGL for such a wonderful present!

The DWI Passenger Lists are of particular interest to me, since I am hoping to find information of my family’s travel to and from the islands. While most of my St Croix family was born there, some arrived from elsewhere (like my 3rd great-grandfather, Joseph Robson of England). I’m hoping that I can discover when they arrived on the island and that this will help me find where they came from.

A Little Genealogical Serendipity

One of the fun things about genealogy research is the tendency of the stars lining up where you least expect.  I had one of those events this week.  It was so unlikely that I thought I’d share.  A 100 year old letter in Denmark helped me identify who was in a 100 year old picture I got from my grandmother’s house in St Croix, of a family in New Jersey, featuring a guest from St Croix.  Confused?  We’ll sort it out.

My Ancestors weren’t Married?! (Part 4-Trends)

This is the fourth part of a series on my study into St. Croix marriages. In Part 1, I described what made me undertake this study. In Part 2, I discussed my methodology and results. Part 3 discussed the decline of baptisms and commented on emigration. In this final part, I will share my findings on how the legitimacy rates changed over time.  Future parts will await further analyses.