Behind The Scenes

Key Caribbean resources from Naomie Harris’ episode

The actor, known for such films as Skyfall, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Moonlight, is of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Her father Brian Clarke’s ancestry goes back to Trinidad and Grenada, while her mother, Carmen, is from Jamaica

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Many Jamaican records are now available through the free website familysearch.org as both transcripts and scanned images. We were able to find the 1921 birth of Naomie’s maternal grandfather Joscelyn Harris and view the certificate itself here: bit.ly/fs-joscelyn. Note that no father is listed, and Joscelyn was born a Tulloch. He became a Harris when his mother Syreta married a Ralph Harris.

Jamaican Newspaper

The site newspaperarchive.com contains articles from many countries including Jamaica, and you can search the index for free although there is a cost to view each article. We found a 1936 story from the Kingston Gleaner about the centenary of Naomie’s 3x great grandmother, Rebecca Tulloch: bit.ly/tulloch-100th.

Slave Register

Naomie discovered that Rebecca’s father, Henry Tracey Goulbourn, was born a slave. We were able to locate his record on a ‘return of slaves’ register, an account of the enslaved people on a particular property in St Ann dated 23 September 1817, which is in the collection ‘All Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813–1834’ on ancestry.co.uk at bit. ly/anc-goulbourn. Henry’s owner was named William Leevers, and his brother Forbes is also on the list, along with their mother (Naomie’s 5x great grandmother) Elizabeth Leevers. She was African, so must have been brought to Jamaica as a slave.