SVGancestry.com
St. Vincent & the Grenadines Genealogy Research Web
Soufrière Volcano in northern St. Vincent (painting by Billinghurst & Jukes, 1800)
The Caribbean/West Indies island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is referred to as the “Gem of the Antilles.” Besides the main island of St. Vincent, it includes the Grenadine islands of Bequia, Canouan, Mayreau, Mustique, and more than two dozen other smaller regions. This chain of islands is home to many people who are proud of their Caribbean culture and heritage. It’s capital is Kingstown, often recorded as Kingston in older records.The written history of this island group dates back more than 300 years, and includes ties to Spain, France, Africa, England, Scotland, India, Portugal, Lebanon, Syria, and others. It’s history prior to European discovery is rich with native Amerindian cultures of the Ciboney, the Arawaks and the Caribs.
St. Vincent Map dated 1823 by Lucas
St. Vincent Ancestry Research
The purpose of this website is to provide a resource for information related to the history of St. Vincent and the Grenadines as it pertains to genealogical research. Like many Caribbean/West Indies locations, finding information on your St. Vincent and the Grenadines ancestors is not an easy task, and resources are quite limited.
It is recommended that researchers utilize the resources found in British, Scottish and other archives, along with the many newspaper records that are available in various libraries, before venturing to St. Vincent. The records offices in St. Vincent have few resources available, and while many records do exist on the island, they are poorly organized and not yet cataloged, saved on microfilm or computerized. Unfortunately, the records are scattered in offices around Kingstown, with births, deaths and marriages in one location (the Registry), wills and deeds in another location (the Courthouse), and only a handful of miscellaneous records housed in the Archives. Many record books are in such fragile condition that simply handling them can cause serious damage. To emphasize that fact, we have been told that some records can only be accessed in a special room which requires researchers to wear a respirator!
An original will from St. Vincent dated 1834 and Baptism records from St. Vincent dated 1813
Our RecordsAny on-site research at the St. Vincent Archives is all done by hand. The staff does not do research by phone, mail, or email, so you must find a researcher on the island who can visit the various offices in person. Students associated with the branch of the University of the West Indies in Kingstown, have conducted research, as well as local attorneys.Visit our RESEARCH TIPS page for more detailed information, and see Our Archives of online records displayed on the left side of this page for actual transcribed records and record indexes on St. Vincent.You’ll find everything from newspaper records of the late 1700’s to Royal Land Grants, military records, wills, cemetery records, government records, family pages, and more. We have a few original will pages from the Will Books kept at the Courthouse in Kingstown, as well as a few original baptism records from the records books of St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Kingstown.
PLEASE NOTE:
The St. Vincent & the Grenadines Genealogy Research Web is undergoing a major website redesign. Please bear with us as we make improvements so that this website is easier for our visitors to use. All of our information will be back as soon as the website maintenance is complete, hopefully by the end of February 2007. Our FORUM is not affected by this update, and can be reached here: http://svgancestry.com/forum If this is your first time visiting this website, you have found the best source for doing genealogy research on ancestors who were from the Caribbean/West Indies island of St. Vincent. On this site you will find records for births, deaths, baptisms, government officials, newspaper records, land and property records, estate and plantation records, and much, much more.