Jamaica Emigration and Immigration

Caribbean Jamaica

English Immigrants
Galenson published a list of more than 50 English indentured servants shipped to the Caribbean, and to a lesser extent, North American colonies:


 * Galenson, David. "Servants Bound for Antigua 1752-56," The Genealogists' Magazine, Vol. 19, No. 8 (December 1978): 277-279. 942 B2gm v. 19 (1977-1979); these immigrants are included in the free online Immigrant Servants Database.

Jamaica Probate Records help identify the immigrant origins of many English settlers.

English Ships
Lloyd's Register of Shipping identifies ships leaving England, their masters, ports of departure, and destinations. They survive as early as 1764 and are being put online at Lloyd's Register of Ships Online - free.

Many ships that sailed from Bristol, England to Jamaica are described in: Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America 1698-1807 (4 vols.).

American Immigrants

 * Judah, George F. Loyalists Who Fled to Jamaica After the American Revolution. MSS. Filmed in 1985:.

German Immigrants
Between 1834 and 1842 four groups of Germans left for Jamaica.

1. Thirteen families from the Braunschweig area landed in 1834 in Kingston. Their first settlement "Brunswick" failed. They eventually went to Clarendon.

2. In December 1834 506 Germans landed in Port Royal. Some settled in Ballintoy/Alva, St Ann.

3. 532 Germans landed in 1835 in Rio Bueno, Trelawny. Most of them origianted from the Weserbergland and Westphalia, 28 came from Waldeck. 251 founded Seaford Town in Westmoreland. Of these settlers 34 died within the next two years, 108 moved on (mostly to the USA) and 119 stayed.

4. 107 settlers arrived in December 1838, originating from Northern Germany, Franken and the Rhön (cultural areas).

The settlers' names are listed in an article written by Adalbert Goertz, published in the periodical GENEALOGIE, Heft 10, Jahrgang 32 (1983), page 704 ff., available through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, call number 943 B2gf