AN ENGLISH VISITOR is sending an SOS for anyone who may know his ancestors to contact him.
Robert Clarke of Southampton, England, is on a quest to find his Bajan roots to finally piece together his family tree.
Clarke and with his wife Mandy have managed to assemble some pieces of this ancestry puzzle through archive searches here and in England.
They discovered that Robert’s great great grandfather, Alexander Clarke, was born around 1828 and may have come to Barbados from Jamaica. His son, Julius Clarke, was born in Barbados around 1858 and lived in Christ Church or St Michael. They were both seamen.
Julius eventually left Barbados between the 1870s and 1890s and moved to Southampton, Hampshire, where he eventually passed away in 1933.
The couple’s searches have unearthed details of Julius’ departure from Barbados to his life, marriage, children and death in Southampton. But there is little else on him while he lived here.
Robert, 57, said that his three late aunts – Phyllis, Ilene and Jean Clarke – visited Barbados in the 1970s and managed to find some of his relatives.
All he recalls his aunts’ saying was that some of the relatives were well off, while others were impoverished. But he can’t remember anything else being said.
“Now I got to my age in life, I want to find out,” said Robert smiling. “I wished I had asked them more before they passed.”
His wife Mandy said they brought their three children here three times on holiday, and they all would like to know who their relatives are.
The couple, who are on their fifth visit here because they “love Barbados”, are guests at the Radison Aquatica Resort, Room 605. They would like any member of the Clarke clan or those related to that family to contact them.
(SP)
