The former British West Indies are among a chain of volcanic and coral islands stretching from Florida to Venezuela across the Caribbean Sea. They include Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Because of the historic links between the British West Indies and Belize and Guyana in Central and South America, people from these countries are also considered to be West Indian or Caribbean.

When Europeans first discovered the West Indies in 1492 most of the islands had indigenous populations. The Portuguese and Spanish enslaved many of these Amerindians to work on plantations and in the gold mines of South America. Large numbers of people died when the Europeans arrived, either through violence resisting the invaders or from diseases brought in by the newcomers against which the people of the Caribbean had no protection.

By the mid-17th century the indigenous population of Jamaica had been considerably reduced, although St Lucia, Dominica, St Vincent and Tobago still had large numbers of indigenous people. One of the indigenous groups in the West Indies, the Caribs, even managed to resist European expansion until the 18th century.

Until the mid-19th century, regular territorial disputes and European wars meant that control of the islands frequently changed hands between one European power and another. On islands captured by Britain from the Spanish, French and Dutch, there was little or no attempt to expel all the non-British. During the French Revolution and Spanish-American independence wars, many refugees fled to so-called friendly British islands.

The majority of Caribbean people are immigrants and include a diverse population of Caribbean Amerindians and the descendants of African slaves and settlers, and Dutch, Spanish, British, Portuguese, Lebanese, Chinese, Danish, Asian Indian, German and French settlers.

The largest ethnic groups in Anglo-Caribbean countries today are people of African, British and Asian-Indian descent.

Since the settling of Caribbean countries in the 17th century, many Caribbean people have returned or migrated to Britain. Many planters, land owners and merchants living in the West Indies sent their children to school in Britain and may themselves have retired to Britain, bringing their servants, including slaves, with them. West Indian merchant seamen, soldiers and sailors were often discharged in Britain and decided to remain there, and many others arrived as businessmen and students.

While white Caribbean migrants were soon integrated into British population and society, black Caribbean migrants could not easily do so because of their colour. Most early black Caribbean settlers in Britain were men – discharged soldiers and sailors, or students. Since there were initially no Caribbean communities in England, they usually married white women which meant that after several generations, descendants of these settlers would be considered white.

Although Caribbean people have settled in the UK for over 300 years it was not until 1948 that large numbers migrated to the UK and this is demonstrated in the census returns covering the period 1891-1951. It is not possible to identify ethnic origin here although it can be assumed that the majority of migrants were of African descent and to a lesser extent European and Asian.

The techniques and sources for researching Caribbean families are essentially the same whether you are starting with a family in the UK, USA, Canada or in the Caribbean.

Try to find out people’s official names; many people from the Caribbean use family and pet names, which are different from their official names as used by employers and the state. Try to discover where events happened; this is important because there are 20 Anglo-Caribbean countries and each has its own archive offices.

The sources you will need to search will be dependent on the information you know already but they will include:

• Life events, recorded in birth, marriage or death records, censuses or wills (eg at www.thegenealogist.co.uk)
• Occupational records Land and property records
• Migration records, such as passenger lists and naturalisation records (eg at www.thegenealogist.co.uk)
• Records of slavery. Until the 20th century slaves formed the largest ethnic group in most of the Anglo-Caribbean countries.
• Other records such as newspapers and early official gazettes, electoral registers, and deeds registers.

The records of the Colonial Office have information on all aspects of colonial life – including economic, military, social and political areas. There are also numerous references to individuals. Britain does not hold the domestic (locally created) records of her dependencies and former colonies. However, The National Archives holds the records of the Colonial Office and other relevant departments.

Note that it is not always possible to identify people who are from the Caribbean. West Indians have European or Asian surnames and first names. UK records rarely say where someone was born or their ethnic origin. For example, a UK census return under the heading ‘Where born’ may only say ‘West Indies’ and occasionally this may be annotated with ‘BS’ or ‘British Subject’. Local Caribbean records are incomplete. Many historical records have been lost through neglect, poor record-keeping practices and fire. Most of the losses, however, are due to war, invasion and the tropical climate.

The culmination of your research may be to find the country of origin for your Caribbean ancestors. If you are lucky enough to find clues to the homeland for your West Indian ancestors you will be able to start researching archives in that country. If your ancestor migrated before the 18th century you may also need to know from which town, village or parish he or she left because most records were made by religious or local authorities rather than by the state. However, not all countries recorded events in legal documents and you may need to research oral evidence and traditions.

This article is an edited extract of his more detailed research guide at www.movinghere.org.uk, reproduced with kind permission of Guy Grannum and The National Archives.