St. Helena

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The East India Company occupied St Helena from 1659 when it became an important trading colony. Garrisons were installed to guard landing places from attack by foreign powers and a fort was established at Jamestown. The defence strength comprised "a regular garrison of Company's European Artillery and Infantry, and a militia drawn from the planters. The Charter Act of 1833 transferred the island to the Crown from 23 April 1834 and the Company's forces were disbanded on the arrival of British Army units in 1836.’’ [1]

Records

British Library

  • Baptisms and Deaths recorded in St Helena Consultations 1737, IOR /G32/10
  • Baptisms and Deaths recorded in St Helena Consulatations 1747-1766, IOR/G32/12-26
  • Ecclesiastical Returns: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials at St Helena 1767-1835, IOR N/6/1-3. These records are probably included in the digitised records now available on the commercial site FindMyPast
  • Summaries of civil and military establishment on St Helena 1780-1794, IOR/ G/32/41-47
  • Wills and inventories recorded in St Helena Judicial Consultations 1820-182, IOR /G32/102
(For confirmation of the above five British Library references see British Library Sources)
  • Nominal Muster Roll of St Helena Artillery, Infantry , Invalids and Pensioners 1789-1859 -British Library ref IOR/L/Mil/13/1-14
  • St Helena Pensioners 5 Dec 1835- 19 July 1837 - British Library ref IOR/L/Mil/13/15
(For further details of what information is held under the two military records above see [1] )

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa holds the
Diocese of St. Helena, Parish Registers and Indices, Registers, 1680-1986 Reference code ZA HPRA AB2073. Records of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA), previously (prior to 2006) called CPSA, Church of the Province of Southern Africa.
Consists of 9 series of records including one series of Ascension Island records from 1839, and one series of records from Tristan d'Acunha. There is also a series of Boer Prisoner Burials, and a series of Gravestones and Memorials on St Helena.
The collection was digitised in 2014/2015 from microfilm filmed in 1989, and the images may be viewed online for free.

The data (possibly only the St Helena data) has been transcribed for a database St Helena Ancestors, part of the Friends of St Helena website. All users can run initial searches but only signed-in members (subscription fee applies) can see the full genealogical details.
Introductory Material for St Helena Ancestor’s Database friendsofsthelena.com.

FamilySearch

  • FamilySearch, (free website), microfilms of records from St Helena may be found with this catalogue entry (keyword search St. Helena, India). Includes microfilms of some records from the India Office Records at the British Library and some records from originals at the Government Archives, Jamestown. Most microfilms have now been digitised and are available to view at FamilySearch Centres or FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries, see FamilySearch Centres.
  • There are also some records for St Helena in the "World Miscellaneous" records on FamilySearch. The source of these records is unknown.

The National Archives

  • There are muster rolls for the St. Helena Regiment at the National Archives WO 12/11042 – WO 12/11058 1842-1865. Note however the records after 1855 are only in respect of "St. Helena Regiment (Depot)", believed to be the Depot in England.
  • The British Army Service records on the pay website findmypast appear to contain some records for men who served in the St. Helena Regiment

Records in St. Helena

  • "Introduction to Seventeenth Century Records in the St Helena Archives" by Anna Winterbottom, Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London Lives and Letters, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2009 pdf xmera.co.uk
    • "Appendix 1: East India Company Consultations" pdf
    • "Appendix 2: Letters from England" pdf
    • "Appendix 3: Goodwin’s Abstracts" pdf
  • "Records of the Island of St. Helena Lat. 15° 55' S. Long. 5° 428W" by G. C. Kitching The American Archivist Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1947), pp. 151-171 (21 pages). Published By: Society of American Archivists. Register with jstor to read online for free.
  • See British Library above, for records digitised, or to be digitised, by the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme.

Also see

Information about the database African Newspapers: The British Library Collection, part of Readex World Newspapers Archive, and available at the British Library in the Reading Rooms. Contains some newspapers from St Helena for the period 1850s-1900.

FIBIS Resources

Ships and travel

Boer POW Camp

"Nothing remains of a prisoner-of-war camp on a high plateau where 6000 Afrikaners were held during the Boer War, but the graves of 156 who never saw their homeland again are carefully tended on a steep hillside. Two granite obelisks bearing their names stand as a memorial to farmers who fought bravely against what was then the mightiest army in the world".[3]

Related articles

External links

Other

"St Helena laws for inhabitants 1672" 04 September 2020. British LibraryUntold lives blog.


Historical books online

Article about the book: Page 501, Nature April 29, 1875. Archive.org.
Reports for additional years are available in the Archive.org collection Colonial Office (Great Britain) publications, including

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 A2A website – St Helena
  2. findmypast has a burial record for “Mrs Lucy Clark, Passenger, Ship Dav. Scott” for burial on 1 January 1805. Also see Jackson, Helen. INDIA Digest, Vol 5, Issue 235 Rootsweb India Mailing List 20 July 2010, archived.
  3. Bell, Gavin. "Island of no return: St Helena, Napoleon’s final place of exile, is a refuge of unexpected diversity", Weekend Australian 14 July 2012, Travel and Indulgence section, page 1, now archived.