by Yao Atunwa
As we seek to embrace the exciting benefits of digitisation in an era of greater sophistication in communication technologies, perhaps our national leaders can prioritise the digitisation of our genealogical archives with steadfast interest and vigour.
The focus of which includes birth, death, marriages, probate and other catalogues that would greatly inform us about our genealogical mapping (and more, quite frankly) as a nation.
The current National Democratic Congress administration has prioritised going paperless in ushering in greater facilitation of transactions that traditionally took the form of the collection and dissemination of information on scores of papers, and required lengthier and more laborious processing, from physical storage, to aggregation, to eventual decision making. Hence, such an initiative by the current administration is certainly welcomed, especially by members of the public and foreigners alike seeking to respond to questionnaires from the government, such as those entering and departing the country at our ports of entry, or persons ordinarily seeking to engage in routine exercises with government that require them to travel to a physical government office.
Efficiency will be positively impacted or should we say shown to be of primary concern, in considering this change. Thus, there is limited counterargument that the wide embracing of paperless transacting will create room for more responsiveness and even faster delivery of government services. At least, such is the hope, in undergoing this critical change in the interfacing between the government and the public and the government’s own intra-dialogue processes.
While such is taking shape, we need not forget that our national archives are in a deplorable state based on the accounts given by even its custodians and the images that would surface from time to time of mounds of paper laying around without the due care warranted for preserving the important information they contain about various aspects of our general history: social, political, cultural, familial/genealogical, etc. The question needs to be duly asked: why aren’t those records given priority by our own people to ensure they are treated with the importance they deserve and clearly warrant?
Outside of the efforts by the US Utah-based religious organisation The Latter-Day Saints to digitise some of our records on their mission to Grenada and other regional and international countries to preserve those critical records for the present and future generations to engage, in seeking to better understand their history and ultimately themselves as individuals (in that history) in their respective societies and the larger world, what have we done as a nation to safeguard our collective memory?
One of the things that surely can be done in short order in this critical undertaking is the extraction or importation of our records from the National Archives in the UK in a holistic manner, for instance. One is referring to establishing a formal agreement with our counterparts in the UK to make our records (in their possession) available in an online national digital library, whereby our Grenadian nationals at home and in the diaspora will have free and uninterrupted access to those records. This is one form of reparative justice that can be immediately advanced on behalf of a people whose lives are still greatly impacted by the absence of important information and knowledge about their experiences in a colonial system that continues to impact (knowingly and unknowingly) their lives in a myriad of ways. One of which being the sustained ignorance of the backgrounds and names (i.e., identities) of their fore-parents and the lives they led in the face of enormous struggle and in many cases outright oppression, and the family networks created in the process.
Knowing the individual plight of one’s ancestors beyond the general or typical narrative of the struggle and sacrifice the group collectively experienced can shed tremendous light on why certain legacies remain (for what they are worth) in certain families, or even insights as to the nature of breakdowns in relationships within families and thus why we exhibit certain behaviours and postures as members of those extended families (even when we have no inkling of familial connections or vague notions of such). In the tapestry of information that can be gathered by virtue of forming partnerships with former colonisers, namely Great Britain and France, our people will be able to assist themselves in piecing stories together (from our access to those records).
Those countries certainly have our records; there is no mystery where that is concerned. They would have made themselves principal custodians with all the legal rights imaginable under the sun. The question, however, becomes, what do we do about our records still in their hands? Moreover, they do not only have our records. Those records are already in digitised formats that can be easily transmitted across borders and even deposited into a national repository in wholesale fashion, such as the one being suggested, a national digital library with a wide scope. Perhaps they can even assist in the setting up of a national digital library. The Grenadian people would appreciate and make good use of a proper digital library, given the period we are in and the very circumstances surrounding our national library at this juncture (notwithstanding the paltry attempt of a digital library that is merely an index/directory for eternalised records I have witnessed while searching for our records).
I urge our leaders in government to demonstrate a keener interest in charting a more responsible way forward in safeguarding our records for our people’s sake, particularly our genealogical records. The time that we are in (a technologically advanced world) grants us a vastly better opportunity to do even more this time around, to compensate for major lapses and outright neglect in managing our archives over the decades. The tools available to us and the fact that others have had the material resources and wherewithal to venture to greater lengths to preserve important records, some of which we can rightfully lay claim to by virtue of being subjects of those records and perhaps more importantly our very relations to the custodians (in the first instance) as former colonial subjects in the collective sense, provides us this superb opportunity to turn things around for our people’s sake.
Engaging in genealogical research cannot seem like a luxury, or an activity that rich people or celebrities partake in at their leisure, and the rest of us from the far-flung reaches of what were well-oiled machines of empires could only wish upon a star to reveal the identity of a long gone ancestor or an elusive marriage or birth certificate. I, for one, along with other members of the 9,000-strong online Facebook group, Grenada Genealogical and Historical Society, eagerly await the vastly increased capacity the implementation of the suggestions made herein will bestow on us and others interested in such project(s).
Let me tease you for a second. If you were to find out that you are connected to Uncle Tilly (Tillman Thomas), Maurice Bishop, and the current Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness, would you not be more curious as to what other hidden secrets might be floating around out there in some stack of paper or online database and the full stories behind such connections? Why won’t anyone seek to learn more? Suffice it to say, this author has not found a more eminently fascinating and eye-opening project than delving into genealogical research and DNA analysis (and history, generally). Perhaps you will as well (as members of the public who are yet to engage in the aforementioned activity). We definitely need the critical infrastructure to do so as a people, wanting and demanding more, by all means.
