A personal journey into my Jamaican ancestry, exploring genealogy, family history, migration, and Caribbean identity across generations.
Clarke’s here, Clarkes there… Clarkes everywhere.
Sometimes it only takes one phone call to reroute an entire life. When my cousin Gail linked with me from Canada, my life changed. We matched on Ancestry through DNA.
She is my half 2nd cousin once removed. Her grandfather, Hilton Clarke-Henderson (1889–1962), was the half brother of my great-grandfather, Refrey Vaughn Clarke . They shared the same mother, Amelia Clarke.
Then she dropped the bomb: they were all Jamaicans?!
Jamaicans in my Family Tree?!
That revelation stopped me in my tracks. My grandfather was born in Trinidad, and his mother was from Anguilla. I had never factored a Jamaican connection into my family story—but here we are, standing squarely in it. His father was from Jamaica!!
How could a woman from Anguilla meet a man from Jamaica and have a child in Trinidad?! My great grandfather and my grandfather were both sailors. My aunt told me there was a salt trade between Anguilla and Trinidad. So that might have been how they met.
Through Gail, I reconnected with my Jamaican roots—roots I didn’t even know I had. I’m a yardie now!!! Okay, okay, my great-grandfather was Jamaican, but still. That discovery shifted something deep inside me.
My great-grandfather was Refrey Vaughn Clarke. He was born on December 27th, 1897, in Content Gap, David’s Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica. I’m told this place sits at the foothills of the scenic Blue Mountains. Ive been to Jamaica but I went to Montego Bay. I’ve never been to St.Andrew Parish, yet I’ve always felt pulled toward those mountains. In my soul, I’ve long wanted to be a farmer in the Blue Mountains. That longing has lived in me for as long as I can remember—another quiet reminder that the ancestors have their own ways of calling us home.
Amelia herself grew up in a large and steadily expanding family. Her brother Edward Alexander was born in 1869, when Amelia was two years old. He was followed by John Abraham in 1874 and Laurence Noah in 1876. By the time Amelia reached her teenage years, she was already familiar with the rhythms of a full household.
In 1878, when Amelia was eleven, two sisters arrived. Kerenhappuch E was born on April 13, 1878, in Gordon Town, David’s Hill Street, St. Andrew, Jamaica. That same year, her sister Joannah “Annie” Elizabeth was also born in Jamaica. More siblings followed: Charles Enoch in 1880, Jackson in 1883, and Elekim Urien in 1886, when Amelia was nineteen.
Adulthood brought Amelia into motherhood. Her son Hilton Aman was born in 1889 at David’s Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica. On December 27, 1897, she welcomed her second son, Refrey Vaughan, my great grandfather born in Content Gap, David’s Hill, St. Andrew, Jamaica.
Amelia’s parents were Thomas Clarke and Amelia Walker-Clarke. Behind Amelia stood an even older lineage. Her father Thomas Clarke’s mother, was Cecilia Bryan Clarke. She was born into slavery in Jamaica in 1807 and died on December 5th, 1893, in Kingston, Jamaica. Cecilia’s mother, Sarah Wilfinch Clarke, was also enslaved. She was born in 1797 and died on the 27th February, 1887, in Hanover, Jamaica.
Amelia’s long life also carried loss. Her son Hilton Aman died in 1942 in Canada at the age of fifty-three. In 1943, her brother Ullin Cyril “Harlyn” passed away when Amelia was seventy-six years old. In 1968, her sister Joannah “Annie” Elizabeth died, when Amelia was over one hundred years old.
Amelia’s story is a simple but powerful one—marked not by spectacle, but by family, time, and the rare experience of witnessing generations rise and pass within a single life.
I carry still the Clarke last name today. Denis Clarke was Refrey’s son thusly my grandfather. I’m Renée Clarke descended from my ancestors from the foothills of the blue mountains; by way of the powdery white beaches of Anguilla and the black sand beaches of St.Kitts.
Interestingly My son Aiden Clarke is the youngest Clarke male in our family tree…last of his name.
Names don’t appear out of nowhere. They arrive through power, proximity, and history—often uncomfortable history. In a future post, I turn to Maynard Clarke, a British plantation owner and the man we are most likely carrying a surname from to this day. His story sits at the uneasy crossroads of inheritance and empire, forcing a reckoning with how lineage, legacy, and identity were shaped in colonial Jamaica, and the wider Caribbean whether we consented to them or not.
🌺🌸Buy me a coffee ☕️ please🌺🌸
LEARN U.S. HISTORY and LITERATURE WITH ME:
