Barbados Church Records

Barbados   Church Records

The oldest standing church on the Island of Barbados is St. James Church (picture on right). Joanne McRee Sanders published indexes and abstracts of many Barbados church records (see below). Recently, FamilySearch has started an initiative to make free online indexes to many of the same records, and has broadened the scope to include nineteenth century records derived from both church and civil records.

Church of England
Original Barbados christenings and burials (1679-1680) are kept at the Barbados Department of Archives. The collection has been microfilmed: 1162149 Item 1

Baptisms

 * "Barbados Baptisms, 1739-1891," online database, FamilySearch.
 * Sanders, Joanne McRee . Barbados Baptisms 1637-1800 . Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1984 . Free Name Search ; digital version at Ancestry ($); purchase at Genealogical.com; 972.981 K29s.

Marriages

 * "Barbados Marriages, 1854-1879," online database, FamilySearch
 * Sanders, Joanne McRee . Barbados Records: Marriages 1643-1800 . Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1982 . Free Name Search ; digital version at Ancestry ($); purchase at Genealogical.com; 972.981 K29sj v. 1.

Burials
Burials registered in some of Barbados's early Church of England parishes (more than 170,126 burial entries) are available on the website Tombstones.bb.

The records have been microfilmed and are widely available through the Family History Library's satellite Family History Center system. Some are also online:


 * "Barbados Burials, 1854-1885," online database, FamilySearch

Vestry Minutes
Barbados Church of England vestry minutes survive from the 1650s for some parishes. See Court Records.

Clergymen

 * Cadbury, Henry J. "Clergymen Licensed to Barbados, 1694-1811," The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Feb. 1948):62-69. FHL LAT AM 972.981 B2j v. 15 1947-48

Miscellaneous Records

 * List and Index Society. Calendar of Letters from Canada, Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, Barbados and the Bahamas 1721-1793: Preserved at the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. London: Swift (P &amp; D), 1972. BRITISH Large Q Book 942 B4pro spec. ser. v. 5

Jews
The late Eustace M. Shilstone was a recognized scholar of Jews in Barbados. His manuscript research notes "Records of Jews in Barbados and Other Family Records," is held at the Library of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. Pages 200 to 204, for example, identify early Jewish wills proved on the island. The collection was recently digitized through a U.S. Embassy grant. His superb work in transcribing, translating, and abstracting Jewish Synagogue monumental inscriptions is discussed in Barbados Cemeteries. Arbell prepared a history of early Jewish refugees in Barbados and other Caribbean islands:


 * Arbell, Mordechai. The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas. Jerusalem, Israel: Gefen Publishing House, 2002/5762. 972.9 F2a

The HaChayim HaYehudim Jewish Photo Library website maintains online images of:


 * BARBADOS, Bridgetown. Nidhe Israel Museum (Barbados Jewish Museum -- former Jewish School building), opened August 2007. (2007)
 * BARBADOS, Bridgetown. Nidhe Israel Synagogue. (2007)
 * BARBADOS, Christchurch. Shaare Tzedek Synagogue, Rockley New Road. (2007)

Quakers
By the 1650s early Quaker colonists arrived in Barbados from the British Isles, and soon spread their religion from Barbados to the east coast of America. An article that describes Quaker records about Barabados is:


 * Dwight A. Radford, and Arden C. White, "The Irish in Barbados," The Irish at Home and Abroad: A Newsletter of Irish Genealogy and Heritage, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1994/1995):92-97. WorldCat entry.