At age seven Professor Pedro L.V. Welch, Jr was taken to the public library by his father Pedro Welch Sr., who had discovered he had never read a book and could only spell a few words.
What was distressing was that his six-year-old sister Sonja was already reading profusely.
At the library, Welch borrowed two books, Marmaduke the Lorry and Muffin the Mule and fell in love with reading.
By age 11 he was reading a book with more than 400 pages in a day.
Welch, Dean of Humanities at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, is from a family that strongly believes in the “acquisition of knowledge” and his mum, former parliamentarian Maizie Barker-Welch, then a teacher, encouraged her children to get involved in cultural activities.
“One day, we went to the old plantation house of one of her students. In an old mill, a chest was discovered with several letters written on behalf of a slave. I was fascinated by these letters that told the story of slavery and people who were slaves,” he said.
That encounter sparked his interest in things historical.
Welch believes strongly in the idea that “it is vitally important for people to know their family history” and so he has done his research into his.
“The problem for most people searching for their ancestors is surnames. Surnames of slaves were not names of the plantation owners. That is a myth. Indeed, the vast majority of enslaved people had single names, without a surname. Most formerly enslaved people did not acquire surnames until about the mid- to late 1840s, after Barbados got emancipation.
“Those emancipated now got the chance to choose their own surnames.”
On his father’s side, Welch found his great-great-great-great grandfather who had been an enslaved worker on a small plantation in Enterprise, Christ Church. He found his great-great grandmother who left land on which he now lives. Through his grandfather on his mother’s side, he was able to trace a great-great-great grandfather and discovered he was a Drakes from St Andrew, who was married at age 50 years old and was baptized the same day.
That was the day he got his surname.
“For the whites, the problem is not so acute. There is a paper trail dating back to the 1600s,” says Welch. “Many can trace right back to the United States and England. For example, the ancestors of the Earl of Lascelles came from England and made a fortune here. Their descendants can easily trace this origin.”
He advised anyone who wanted to search for family history to begin with aged relatives. Then, armed with the names and approximate years they lived or ages, the next step would be to visit the Records Office which would have details if the ancestors were from 1903 and upwards. Ask for baptism or death records.
Any names from before 1900 will be located in the Barbados Archives.
Welch said, “Our records are very well kept. They are among the best in the Caribbean.”
Years ago, on a trip to Suriname, Welch met Ramòn Cumberbatch who was of Barbadian origin. His great-great-grandfather migrated there in the 1880s.
“That sparked my curiosity and I made a trip to England and researched and subsequently published an article on over 3 000 Barbadians who went to Suriname in that time period. Up to that time, no one had known of that migration.”
Welch has published works on Barbadian history and his findings are cited all over the world. He has written two books on the City of Bridgetown. He has also done consultancies with the BBC and NBC networks for programmes in which celebrities search for their roots.
Welch has also researched formerly enslaved black women whom he described as “fascinating”.
Many of these women, he said, fought for freedom of their own people – and he cited names such as Sussanah Ostrelaan, who owned the largest hotel in Cumberland Street in 1809, Caroline Lee, Betsy Austinand the famous Rachel Pringle.
