Find a person in the Danish West Indies

The source groups here are selected as they are the most relevant sources to finding individual persons in the Danish West Indies. However, sources on different individuals can, of course, be found in many other documents from the period. In the registry, you can get an overview of all digitized records from local Danish authorities in the Danish West Indies.

Enslaved people, ‘the free coloured’ and labourers

The largest group was the enslaved and later free labourers. There is less information about them in the archives than many other groups in the community, but if you want to find a specific enslaved or farm labourer, censuses, parish registers, reports from religious congregations and slave lists are a good place to start. They contain the most basic personal data, e.g. name, place of residence, age, civil status and affiliation with a religious community.

In addition a middle group existed during the time of slavery, namely the free coloured population, called ”de frikulørte” (the free coloured). This group consisted of former enslaved labourers who had purchased their freedom or had been freed, and of coloured people who were born free. Personal data about this group can also be found in censuses, parish registers and reports from religious congregations but also in special lists of free coloured persons where their free status is documented.

European civilians

The second largest group in colonial society was the free, civilian European population, i.e. plantation owners, merchants and employees in the colonial administration and their families. Personal data about them can also be found in censuses, parish registers and reports from religious congregations.

Military personnel

Finally, military personnel constitute a smaller and special part of the European population. There is a great deal of personal data about them in payrolls, muster rolls and service records, while there is less to be found in censuses, parish registers and reports from religious congregations.

The censuses can help you to find out:

• Age
• Marital status, Title, Status in the household
• Occupation
• Place of birth
• Religion
• Where a person lived at a given point in time

The censuses from before 1848 also tell whether a person was enslaved or free and about the person’s physical condition and moral character. Twelve censuses were conducted and each of them provides a snapshot of every household in the colony in a given year.

There are censuses for the following years: 1835, 1841, 1846, 1850, 1855, 1857, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1901 and 1911, but the censuses for 1835 and 1890 are not complete.

The censuses are organized according to each of the three islands and by town and rural areas on each island:

Towns

The censuses are divided by street name and organized by house number.

Rural areas

The censuses are divided by quarters (districts) and by name of plantation within the districts.

St. Croix

Kompagniets quarter (Company quarter), Dronningens quarter (Queens quarter), Kongens quarter (Kings quarter), Prinsens quarter (Princes quarter), Westende quarter (West End quarter), Ostende quarter A (East end quarter A), Ostende quarter B (East end Quarter B), Nordside quarter A (North side quarter A), Nordside quarter B (North Side quarter B).

St. Thomas

Oost Ende quarter (East end quarter), Røde Huck quarter (Red Huck quarter), Frenchman’s Bay quarter (Frenchman’s Bay quarter), Nye quarter (New quarter), Store Nord Side quarter (Great north side quarter), Lille Nord Side quarter (Little north side quarter), Syd Side quarter (South side quarter), Vestende quarter (West end quarter).

St. John

Cruz Bay quarter, Maho Bay quarter, Reef Bay quarter, Coral Bay quarter, Oost Ende quarter (East end quarter).

Parish registers are important sources of knowledge of life, death, religion and personal relations in the colony. They contain not only information about baptisms, confirmations, marriages and funerals, but often also about family relations, status as enslaved or free, age and occupation:

Information in the Parish Registers

• Baptismal records: date of the baptism, the name of the person who was baptized, names of parents, whether the person was enslaved or free, and the names of the godmothers and godfathers.
• Confirmation records: date og the confirmation and the name of the confirmand. They were often adult enslaved individuals in their twenties.
• Marriage records: date of the wedding, the status of the couple as enslaved or free and the names of the witnesses. Marriage across different Christian communities was not unusual. In the decades before 1848, some enslaved persons were also married to free persons.
• Funeral lists: date of the funeral, the person’s status as enslaved or free, age and occupation.

Several religious communities

Unlike Denmark, there was no state church in the Danish colony in the West Indies, but several large religious communities. The Danish National Archives keep parish registers from three of these:

• The Evangelical Church
• The Black Lutheran Mission Church
• The Dutch Reformed Church.

Parish registers exist for the period 1691-1920, but many have been lost and therefore there are none for all communities for the whole of this period. The books are written in Danish (Gothic or Latin), German (Gothic), Dutch (Latin) or English (Latin).

The Danish National Archives’ collection of parish registers is organized according to the three religious communities and under this geographically by island. The structure of the parish registers vary widely according to the point in time and the religious community. Some were kept chronologically with columns for every church ceremony, while others are structured by each ceremony: baptism, confirmation, marriage and funerals.

The reports from religious congregations can supplement the information you find in the parish registers. They were reports to the local administration from the religious communities on the islands. Here you will also find information about names, dates and status as enslaved or free and other valuable information.

The reports are excerpts from the religious communities’ parish registers and therefore could cover any holes there. Reports exist for 1805-1918. At the same time, the reports cover the Roman Catholic Church, from which there are no church records in the Danish National Archives’ collection. Thus, there are reports from five religious communities:

• The Danish Lutheran (Evangelical) Church
• The English Evangelical (Anglican) Church
• The Dutch Reformed Church
• The Missionary Society (Moravian Church, Brødremenigheden, Herrnhut)
• The Roman Catholic Church.

The reports are written in Danish (Gothic or Latin), German (Gothic) or English (Latin).

In general, the reports from religious congregations are organized according to ceremony (baptism, confirmation, marriage and funeral). They are then first organized chronologically in intervals of varying lengths (from 5 to 40 years), then geographically by island and finally according to religious community.

• Baptismal reports: name of the father and mother, place of residence, religion and the names of godmothers and godfathers.
• Confirmation reports: name, age and place of residence.
• Marriage reports: names of the bride and the groom and witnesses to the marriage.
• Funeral reports: place of residence, cause of death and civil status, whether the person was enslaved or free and if enslaved who the owner was.

Each year, every free citizen in the colony had to make a list of the persons residing on his or her property, both free and enslaved persons. You can use these lists to look for information about the enslaved individual and their conditions and about life in the country and the town and life on large and small plantations. The slave lists are very different but often state the enslaved labourers’:

• Name, gender and place of birth
• Work function (”field slave”, ”house slave”)
• Religion
• State of health
• Status (able-bodied, partly unfit for work, newly arrived adult or adolescent or child)

The enslaved are usually only listed with one first name, but can be listed with two (”Jack James”) or a first name and a nickname (”John Bomba”).

The lists were drawn up annually between 1772 and 1821. They are very different – from pre-printed forms to handwritten forms and lists in a continuous text. They are written in Danish (Gothic) or English or Dutch (both Latin).

The lists mainly cover St. Croix, and very few have been preserved from St. Thomas and St. John. The collection of slave lists is organized according to town and country district, including:

• For town: Divided chronologically and then alphabetically by the name of the owner of the enslaved labourer.
• For country: Divided chronologically and then by quarter (district).

If a person has disappeared from one slave list to the next, it may be because the person has been sold or is dead – or that his or her freedom has been purchased. You can investigate the latter through the lists of free coloured persons (in Danish ‘frikulørte’ or ’frie farvede’). The lists are a sort of census of free Afro-Caribbean men, women and children in the jurisdiction of Christiansted on St. Croix (i.e. the Kompagniets, Dronningens and Kongens quarters as well as Ostende quarters A and B).

The lists can provide you with information about persons whose freedom had been bought and those who were born free and of the life they lived. They state, inter alia, name, place of birth, the name of the owner, if any, who had set the person free, the number of years the person had lived in Christiansted, occupation and religion.

Lists exist for 1744-1783, 1791, 1794-1798, 1800, 1802, 1805, 1811, 1816, 1826 and 1831.

After 1834, free coloured persons were no longer registered as a special group, but included in the group of free persons together with the Euro-Caribbean population.

In general, the collection of lists of free coloured persons is organized chronologically. Then each list is organized after sequence number only – neither geographically nor alphabetically after the person’s name. The lists are written in Danish (Gothic) and English (Latin).

A payroll (Zahlrulle) is an annual list of soldiers in the West Indian military.

In the payrolls you can find information about each soldier’s name, rank, number in the roll and any events that took place during the year (e.g. if the person was promoted, resigned, dismissed, deserted or died).

The payrolls cover the period between 1762 and 1770. After 1770, they were called mandtalsruller. The collection of payrolls is divided chronologically. Each roll is also organized after rank with the officers first. The payrolls are written in German (Gothic).

A muster roll (mandtalsrulle) is an annual list of soldiers in the West Indian military. In the muster rolls you can find information about each soldier’s name, rank, number in the roll and any events that took place during the year (e.g. if the person was promoted, resigned, dismissed, deserted or died).

The muster rolls cover the period between 1771 and 1860. They were called payrolls from 1762 to 1770. The Danish National Archives’ collection of muster rolls is divided chronologically. Each roll is also organized after rank with the officers first. In the 1770s the muster rolls were mainly written in German (Gothic). From 1780 all were written in Danish (Gothic).

The service records are overviews of soldiers recruited in Denmark for the military force in the West Indian colony between 1799 and 1916. They contain information about every soldier including name, rank, date of recruitment or posting, whether he came from a Danish regiment, which ship the person sailed on to the West Indies and when and how he left the service again.

The collection is organized chronologically in two periods: 1799-1872 and 1873- 1916. The records are then in alphabetical order after the soldier’s surname. As soldiers were often given their name after the area they came from as an extra surname, the soldiers are often entered twice: e.g. under the surname (fx ”Andersen”) and under the place name (fx ”Allindemagle”).

This is a list of inhabitants in the Danish West Indies approx. 1650-1825 collected by the genealogist Hugo Ryberg and edited by Rigmor de Vicq in 1945 (A list of the names of inhabitants: The Danish West Indian Islands (The VIRGIN ISLANDS) from 1650-c. 1825).

It contains a long list of persons who mainly appear in different West Indian documents in the Danish National Archives but also in books about the Danish West Indies and newspapers from the islands. The list is drawn up alphabetically by surname, although there are a number of inconsistencies, and it has an index at the back (pp. 602-682).

Unfortunately, the references to which documents the information comes from are not very precise (cf. list of sources used pp. 594-601). Therefore, the list can only be used to provide inspiration and a guide to searching the Danish National Archives, and not as a source of fully credible information.

Go to the List of Inhabitants.

This is an alphabetical card index of names of people, places, and ships in the Danish West Indies. The index was compiled by the author Kay Larsen and is titled “Danish West Indian and Guinean Personalia and Data.”

It was created between 1920 and 1929 and consists of 8 boxes of handwritten cards, which are housed at the Royal Library. The index has been digitised and is available online here. Unfortunately, the references to the archival sources from which the information is derived are not very precise. Therefore, the list can only be used as inspiration and as a guide for searching the National Archives, rather than as a source of entirely reliable information.

Visit the index online.