Cameroon Genealogy

Africa Cameroon

Guide to Cameroon ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Getting started with Cameroon research
European contact began in the 1500s. During the next three centuries, Spanish, Dutch, and British traders visited the area, and there was coastal slave trading. Christian missions appeared in the mid 1800s and are still active in the country.

In 1884 by treaty with local chiefs, the German Consul of Tunis, Tunisia, extended a protectorate over Cameroon. Germany strengthened its claim and expanded its territory by treaties with Great Britain and France, but British and French armies invaded the German colony in 1914.

Cameroon was divided between Britain and France in 1919, with the larger, eastern area under France. A 1922 League of Nations mandate sanctioned the division; in 1946, the United Nations converted the mandates into trusteeships. In December 1958, the French trusteeship was ended. French Cameroon became the Republic of Cameroon on January 1, 1960. The southern portion of British Cameroon was united with French Cameroon, and the new Federal Republic of Cameroon was created October 1, 1961.

Research Tools

 * http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/CMR/AFR-CAMEROON.html