Documentary: Tracing the history of my surname from slavery in Jamaica to the Scottish highlands

Kuba Shand-Baptiste traces her family history all the way to a stately home in the Scottish Highlands in this illuminating documentary about Black Britain that predates the Windrush Generation.

The Burn is a Georgian manor house with a dark history of slavery. Kuba's quest to unearth her family name reveals interesting facts about Georgian Britain and its links with the Caribbean and beyond.

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[kRod]

I’m half Jamaican, my grandmother’s father my great grandfather was a scots-Irish man born in Jamaica his parents had left the British isles and settled in Jamaica in the 1880s, we decend from the Kinninmonth clan of Fife my 2nd great grandfather George would get an an inheritance from his father Peter, a farmer in Fife, George would move to Surry, England and take up an Irish wife and they’d move to Jamaica where George bought a farm in St. Thomas and had 4 children one of whom was my great grandfather Arthur who got an inheritance of money and the farm from his father his siblings would move to Panama. My great grandfather would employ local Jamaicans to work on his farm one of those workers he fell in love with, got married and had 16 children one of them being my grandmother and the rest is history.

[SerenitySlumber]

Hey girl I’m Jamaican and my last name was Shand until my grandfather changed it to Shann

[JacquelineGordon-iz]

My family is Jamaican. I’m 13% Scottish. My last name is Gordon

[phyllisb-chronicles]

I’m 25 percent Scottish. My day always spoke of his father being part Scottish. The dna made the links. Moray

[theempressdesha]

I don’t like how it’s being brushed off like it’s a normal thing to happen almost as if he was saying slaves are heroes. Those enslaved weren’t soldiers so it shouldn’t be treated as that type of memorial. This is brutality, A cruel and wicked act against a race of people. It was evil and demonic behavior by corrupt people. It should be remembered as such by those same group of people and for it to never ever happen again

[gatheringleaves]

On my father's side of the family the Anderson family line originates in Scotland in the East Lothian area. They settled in St James, Jamaica in the early 1700s and owned several plantations such as Flower Hill. Rebecca Mulloy had several children with Dr. John Anderson and David MacNish, including one who ended up settling in New Zealand and becoming one of the earliest "Pakeha Maoris"

[drkeithburton]

I’m just seeing this. Thanks so much for your contribution to Jamaican genealogy. If you have not done so as yet, I strongly recommend that you do a DNA test.

If you have the last name “Shand” the chances are that you are a descendant. People often make the mistake of confusing the naming conventions in Jamaican plantations with those in the American colonies. However, if the enslaved in Jamaica carried the surname of an enslaved or a plantation overseer, the chances are that this was their father. The register will identify them as Mulatto, Quadroon, or Octoroon.

[Grooovie]

I’m a Jamaican and I’m 15% Scottish and 10% Chinese. I love these stories

[nailahdawkins]

Thank you for talking about this! One of my family names is McGowan. It's both Irish and Scottish and my fam has both that Irish/Scottish DNA from my Mom 🎉.

I'm taking up the challenge with finding it and I'm 90% sure it's from the major enslaver James McGowan in Port Royal, Kingston, Jamaica.

I recently bought the book by Kate Phillips, 'Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica, Slavery'. It's definitely worthy of reading for my info and history.

[LiveforGodalways]

They are looking at this through an American lens what people need realize is that mulattos weren’t considered black and their were marriages in Jamaica between white and black in Jamaica during slavery it’s very different from what happened in America it’s not always rape. Especially since the mulatto kids benefited from their plantation owner father. It’s a complicated because today we live in a better world but let’s not edit history and call the kids black because it brings confusion of them verse full Africans.

[MumOfManyForTheGloryOfGod]

I’m looking for the surname MCcogg any help would be appreciated 🤷🏽‍♀️

[westindianmalkah]

Wowwww my some of my ancestors were on an estate William Shand had in Jamaica my maternal side are from a saint Catherine during early 1800s it was called Saint John parish and Saint Dorothy

[dalyahgreenberg]

Check out the transportation records from Europe to the Americas and Caribbean plantations from the 1700s. A description of the transported passengers is recorded. Many European people were actually people of color and were then exported, and sent to work on the American plantations and in the Caribbean. Cromwell in the 1600s deported the black Irish. When these dark Europeans went, they took their names with them. Once in the Americas, new laws separating people by color codes were then created to keep darker colored people enslaved. Following the bacon rebellion in the 1690s, legal distinction between people based on the caste of color was created so as to distract the populations from coming together.

[laminage]

Princess Diana's Mother was married to Peter Shand Kydd so who knows maybe they come from the same cloth.

[alasdairmacaulay]

A very interesting and also moving documentary. Thank you.

[westindianmalkah]

That's awesome to went to Scotland I'd love to do the same I've many Scottish surnames on my maternal side. Gordon, McLeod, Taylor, Hay, Hayes, Hume's, the list goes on

[teddydavis]

My mother's name is Scottish as well. Abernathy, which is also very rare.
As black people, we often talk about the sins of the Europeans, while we ignore the role that African leaders played in the trans atlantic slave trade.
African leaders sold millions or maybe billions of slaves to Arabs and Europeans.
Also, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to actually snatch African and enslaved them in Portugal as early as the 1440s.
The economy of many African countries was based on slavery- trading arms, umbrellas, and mirrors for human beings.
I know this is hard to accept, but these are facts.
It was the Europeans who attempted to abolish it, not the Africans. As we know, most African slaves ended up on Portuguese ( Brasil, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome e Principe) colonies. And they didn't abolish slavery in their colonies until 1888. That's about 450 years of slavery and Portugal is still poor.

[naimawright]

In Jamaica, after emancipation, many formerly enslaved people simply took on the last name of the plantation they were on or picked their own last name. This did NOT necessarily mean that they were genetically linked to the owners of the plantation. Even in this story, the mixed kids of the plantation owner left Jamaica and their descendants did not remain on the island. If she was genetically linked to the Shand brothers, she could have started this doc with an ancestry dna test and traced back that way 💁🏾‍♀️

[Wordofgod]

Interesting her father was one of the men they took to work n continued producing iron manufacturing they stole from Jamaica… very interesting.

[shandstv]

lol I’m Shand too, and I heard my grandpa was from st Ann before he moved to westmoreland.