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Press Releases

Surprises in store in search for African-Caribbean roots

Category: Radio
Date: 29.10.2007
Printable version

A white family with a black slave ancestor, a black family with a Chinese great-grandmother and the story of an institution boy who became a great jazz saxophonist are just some of the stories revealed in a new series Who Am I? to be heard across ´óÏó´«Ã½ Local Radio from next week.

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Who Am I? started as an online search to help African-Caribbean families trace their roots, as part of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s coverage of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

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Though genealogy has long been a popular pastime for white British families, those of Caribbean and African descent have often been put off by perceived obstacles such as records kept abroad and in some cases a reluctance from older family members to discuss the past.

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"Many people of my grandparents' generation felt the slavery days were best forgotten, and what might have been before that was not even contemplated," says Elonka Soros, Diversity Editor for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ English Regions, and the project's editor.

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"Who am I? has not only provided people with a wonderful opportunity to find out about the ancestry that has helped shape them into who they are today, but will also give the rest of us valuable insight into how to make the same discoveries for ourselves."

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In the new series:

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• The aunt of Jennifer Thornton from Yorkshire had always hinted at a dark secret in the family. Jennifer and two long lost cousins are forced to assess their white identity when Jamaican records reveal their great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a black servant. They travel to the island to find the tombstones of the family they think may have owned the man they know only under his baptism name, John Yorke.
  
  Faith Tankard, whose forebears were the slaves of refugees from Haiti, who had fled after the only successful slave revolt in history, finds distant relatives and learns about the rigid colour classification that existed in the racially-obsessed society that was 19th century Jamaica.
  
  Monica Brown from Leamington learns her great-grandmother was part Chinese, and finds out why every village in Jamaica once had a Chinese grocery.
  
• Amber Harvey, the illegitimate daughter of acclaimed jazz saxophonist Joe Harriott, who saw her only once, traces her father's roots to a Jamaican institution for destitute children and meets one of her father's school friends in a bid to discover what he was really like.

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Leading genealogy specialists, including the Registrar General's office in Jamaica where records date back to the 1600s, historians and DNA experts are on hand to find the truth behind the stories that some families have handed down for generations.

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Jennifer Thornton laughs when she remembers the clues in her great-aunt being known as Black Sarah, while her grandfather was called Blackman Yorke.

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Who Am I? will be played across all African and Caribbean programmes on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Local Radio as part of Black History Month, and can be heard as part of the UK Black podcast.

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Further details are available from bbc.co.uk/radio/podcast or by listening again online at bbc.co.uk/england/ukblack.

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The 12 stations that will broadcast Who Am I? are: ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Leicester, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Derby, ´óÏó´«Ã½ WM (Birmingham and the Black Country), ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Northampton, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Gloucestershire, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Suffolk, ´óÏó´«Ã½ London 94.9, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Berkshire, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Gloucester and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Bristol.

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The programmes are broadcast on different days at different times – please see local listings for times and frequencies or listen online at bbc.co.uk/england.

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JW

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