Introduction
My name is Deborah Nembhard and I have always had an interest in history and even more so as I grow older. So when I embarked upon researching my family history I was intrigued to come across a publication on the web called Nembhard of Jamaica written by a Mabel Nembhard. My own research then took a different direction. The more I read the more fascinated I became and the more I wanted to find out if I was connected to these Nembhards from Europe.
I have seen across the web many others searching for the history of the Nembhard family and many discussions and comments on the Irish genealogy website which I found interesting, ambiguous and flawed. So, I decided to trawl through Nembhard of Jamaica to identify and connect which of the original Nembhards were connected to the parishes; St. Mary, Hanover, St. Ann and St. Elizabeth. St Elizabeth is the parish from where my father, his siblings, his grandparents and their parents came from.
After reading Nembhard of Jamaica I felt compelled to do some further research to try to fill in some gaps. Most of the interesting facts that would really help pull this puzzle together is unfortunately just not available on the web and so there remains unanswered questions. One of which is, from which country or island did the original John Nembhard, medical doctor, emigrate before arriving in Jamaica? When he arrived in 1745 he came with servants and slaves. Even Mabel was not able to trace this but surmised that he probably came from a Dutch Caribbean island, and that tradition indicated he was of Dutch heritage. There is some speculation that he came from Den Haag, S-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands (The Hague). She had also sent out a request for such information to a historical publication called Caribbeana (mentioned later), to which she was a contributor. So, this work pulls out the key Nembhard named in the publication to try to show the Nembhard connections with several parishes in Jamaica. And, yes along this journey I discovered that many of our Nembhard ancestors were enslaved by these original European Nembhards - as property. Some may have been illegitimate children, or servants or free persons, as I found out from the slave records available on Ancestry.com.
This research is therefore my interpretation of Nembhard of Jamaica with some further information included that I uncovered along the way. At times I also quote verbatim directly from Mabel’s publication. I have kept the spelling of the name to 'Nembhard' and not 'Nembhardt' simply because in my line of Nembhard we have never spelt it that way, and from Nembhard of Jamaica and the original hand written slave records I have seen, it has also not been spelt with a 't'. It is however possible that somewhere along another line of Nembhard it was spelt 'Nembhardt' as there are several branches of the Nembhard family tree.
Since I became distracted from my original objective I have not yet been able to close my family gap beyond my great grand mother known as Granny Mimi or Ada Hanson (we think) who was born around 50-60 years after slavery finally ended in Jamaica in 1838. She died in Mountainside, St. Elizabeth around 1980 aged 93. Her partner was James Nembhard (my great grand father). Granny Mimi's mother would have been born after slavery ended but it is likely that her grandmother was born whilst slavery was still legal in Jamaica. So the research into my own family ancestry remains incomplete for now. But, I plan to approach it from a different angle to find out where in Africa my ancestors possibly came from.
Whilst the outcome of this research was not what I expected or would have desired, at least I now know who was responsible for our origin in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica and our family name. For those Nembhards who are today searching to find out how they may be connected to this little piece of history, I hope you will find it helpful.
Deborah Nembhard
March 2012
Next page
I have seen across the web many others searching for the history of the Nembhard family and many discussions and comments on the Irish genealogy website which I found interesting, ambiguous and flawed. So, I decided to trawl through Nembhard of Jamaica to identify and connect which of the original Nembhards were connected to the parishes; St. Mary, Hanover, St. Ann and St. Elizabeth. St Elizabeth is the parish from where my father, his siblings, his grandparents and their parents came from.
After reading Nembhard of Jamaica I felt compelled to do some further research to try to fill in some gaps. Most of the interesting facts that would really help pull this puzzle together is unfortunately just not available on the web and so there remains unanswered questions. One of which is, from which country or island did the original John Nembhard, medical doctor, emigrate before arriving in Jamaica? When he arrived in 1745 he came with servants and slaves. Even Mabel was not able to trace this but surmised that he probably came from a Dutch Caribbean island, and that tradition indicated he was of Dutch heritage. There is some speculation that he came from Den Haag, S-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands (The Hague). She had also sent out a request for such information to a historical publication called Caribbeana (mentioned later), to which she was a contributor. So, this work pulls out the key Nembhard named in the publication to try to show the Nembhard connections with several parishes in Jamaica. And, yes along this journey I discovered that many of our Nembhard ancestors were enslaved by these original European Nembhards - as property. Some may have been illegitimate children, or servants or free persons, as I found out from the slave records available on Ancestry.com.
This research is therefore my interpretation of Nembhard of Jamaica with some further information included that I uncovered along the way. At times I also quote verbatim directly from Mabel’s publication. I have kept the spelling of the name to 'Nembhard' and not 'Nembhardt' simply because in my line of Nembhard we have never spelt it that way, and from Nembhard of Jamaica and the original hand written slave records I have seen, it has also not been spelt with a 't'. It is however possible that somewhere along another line of Nembhard it was spelt 'Nembhardt' as there are several branches of the Nembhard family tree.
Since I became distracted from my original objective I have not yet been able to close my family gap beyond my great grand mother known as Granny Mimi or Ada Hanson (we think) who was born around 50-60 years after slavery finally ended in Jamaica in 1838. She died in Mountainside, St. Elizabeth around 1980 aged 93. Her partner was James Nembhard (my great grand father). Granny Mimi's mother would have been born after slavery ended but it is likely that her grandmother was born whilst slavery was still legal in Jamaica. So the research into my own family ancestry remains incomplete for now. But, I plan to approach it from a different angle to find out where in Africa my ancestors possibly came from.
Whilst the outcome of this research was not what I expected or would have desired, at least I now know who was responsible for our origin in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica and our family name. For those Nembhards who are today searching to find out how they may be connected to this little piece of history, I hope you will find it helpful.
Deborah Nembhard
March 2012
Next page
|
|
Page 1/8
|
