You know the top secret security question we all get asked at some point:

What is your mother’s maiden name?

Well, I never seriously considered changing my last name when I got married. So my kids have it easy: my last name is the same as my “maiden” name. I’ve only ever had the one surname. [Actually, I just thought of this: maybe I should secretly choose a “fair maiden” name—like Guinevere or Seraphina—and tell only my kids so they can have an extra tight security question.]

But I digress…before I even start.

The point of this post is that my mother’s maiden name is Powell, which is neither Italian nor Irish—the two ethnicities I have explored the most. I’m half Italian (all of my father’s grandparents were born in Italy) and at least one eighth Irish. (I did a deep dive on that Irish great grandmother on my recent trip to Ireland.)

Well, the ethnicity of the man that my Irish great grandmother married and had six children with (including my grandfather) is more of a mystery. Thanks to my mother’s extensive research, we know his name was David Julian Alonzo Powell and that he was born in Jamaica in 1876. They married in Liverpool, England in 1903, shortly before emigrating to Brooklyn, NY.

He worked as a mechanic and a fireman and died of syphilis at age 43 in New York. His race was listed as “white” in census records and on his death certificate.

Now, David’s brother Henry, from the same two Jamaican-born parents, was classified as “mulatto” on the 1920 US census and worked as a minister in several black churches in the US south before returning to Jamaica.

One of the US churches he served was in Asheville, NC, where a newsletter noted that Rev. Powell was “a quiet cultured Christian gentleman, whose record in the city has been as clean as a hound’s tooth. He is every inch a priest in the Episcopal church. He has been a credit to the colored people in Asheville and they have in turn put a true evaluation upon him.”

Soooo, one brother (my great grandfather) lived as a white person in the US, and the other one (my great granduncle) lived as a mixed-race or black person in the US. Their father, William Henry Powell (my great great grandfather) lived his entire life in Montego Bay, Jamaica. His 1902 death certificate listed his occupation as “baker.” His race is not listed, but it seems almost certain that he and his wife Elizabeth were of mixed Afro-European descent. (Fully white Europeans were a very small percentage of the Jamaican population at that time and typically did not live and work in downtown Montego Bay, whereas Black Jamaicans and mixed-race Jamaicans frequently worked as bakers, carpenters, tailors, and other tradespeople.)

Of course, this begs one of the most challenging questions for those who seek out their roots: were any of my ancestors enslaved? And for mixed-race people, the even more more challenging corollary: were any of my ancestors enslavers? It seems likely, as slavery is how black people got to Jamaica in the first place.

I guess now I’ll have to do some reading on the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.

So, my mother’s maiden name leads to Jamaica 🇯🇲

What’s behind your mother’s “maiden” name?

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UPDATE: I’ve just learned from Elle’s blog that today (August 1) is a very important national holiday in Jamaica. It’s Emancipation Day, which celebrates the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1834.

Happy Emancipation Day, Jamaica. 🇯🇲

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