Caribbean Ancestry Club (CAC) is hosting a workshop “How to Find my Caribbean Ancestors?”

The Caribbean Ancestry Club (CAC) is hosting a workshop “How to Find my Caribbean Ancestors?”, at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague November 4. The organizers, who bill themselves as a community platform for and by ABCSSS community members, note in their Facebook announcement that this event "is your chance to embark on this important journey with us if you always wanted to delve into the archives to search for your Caribbean ancestors from the ABCSSS islands?"

The Caribbean Ancestry Club organized a similar workshop at the Nationaal Archief last year, also titled: “How to Find my Caribbean Ancestors?”. "This workshop was very well-received by our community members. We will follow-up on our previous workshop and try to delve deeper into doing ancestral research with the guidance from Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis (CBG) and other experts specialized in ancestral research." 

They say that their next event on Saturday November 4  will be in the form of a workshop, during which they will spend the whole day doing ancestral/family research (in Dutch: voorouderonderzoek) with our community members.

"Ancestral research requires a lot of emotional and mental preparation; prior, during and after searching in the archives for your ancestors. In order to better prepare our community members for this journey, we will start the workshop with an interactive panel talk on the emotional and mental aspects of doing ancestral research. We will collectively touch upon questions such as; What does ancestral research do to our bodies? How can we navigate archives, while still healing from ancestral traumas and searching for answers relating to our identities? How can we improve the emotional accessibility of archives, in general?"

Furthermore on their Facebook announcement

This is is not a regular CAC event with performances and an open mic. It’s a full day workshop on doing ancestral research and tracing a family lineage. Please be advised that not all community members will manage to go deep, find a lot of information about their ancestors, etc. So come prepared with an open mind, and don’t expect to find it all in one day. Archival research takes time and effort. Sadly, sometimes you can’t manage to trace your lineage far back.

* It is required to do a little bit of homework before attending the workshop. After signing up, you will receive the handout “How to Find my Caribbean Ancestors?” via email. Please read it carefully, and try to answer all the questions. Please set a clear intention/research focus while filling in the handout. For example: “I want to know more about my maternal ancestral line, so this means talking to my mom/parents to write down the names of my maternal (great)grandparents.”

* For the workshop it is necessary to bring your own laptop/tablet. The digital archives are difficult to access on a mobile phone, so please bring your own laptop/tablet or borrow one from a friend. Even better: tell your friend to join you, so the two of you can search the archives together. 

* Community lunch and borrel are FREE/included. We will close the day off with a community borrel. 

Participation is FREE, but sign up is mandatory. We only have limited spots available. Sign

Details: Saturday November 4 from 11:00-17:00 at Nationaal Archief, The Hague

Programme (subjected to change)
11:00 Walk-in with coffee & tea
11:30-13:00 Panel talk/sharing experiences (speakers will be announced soon!)
13:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Workshop by CBG on how to search the archives
14:30-15:30 Searching the archives
15:30-16:00 Aftertalk/sharing experiences
16:00-17:00 Borrelup here: https://forms.gle/pJzzjeVc6PKsWf6U6

We hope to see you on Saturday November 4!