This lecture entitled “Danish National Archives, Tips and Tricks for Danish West Indies Genealogy Research” is presented by researcher Dante Beretta.

The Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet) has the largest collection of historical documents related to the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dante will share tips and tricks on how to be more effective in discovering your family story in these valuable documents. He uses his own family research as an example throughout the presentation.

Dante has researched his family story in the Virgin Islands/Danish West Indies through many generations and writes family stories as short vignettes, including "My Emancipated Ancestors", “How Crown House Survived the Hurricane of 1916", "Early St. Thomas Panoramas - 1850s", and "Taking the Last Danish Census - 1911" just to name a few. Dante’s familiarity with the Danish records is tied to his research and to his experience as a volunteer helping to transcribe records within the Danish National Archives West Indies Collection.

About the Danish Archives West Indies Collection
In 2017, with the support of AP Møller and his wife, Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller's Foundation for General Purposes and the Ministry of Culture, the National Archives marked the anniversary by disseminating the original documents and sources as well as the history of the colonial era. The National Archives 'digitization project "Danish West Indies - sources of history" ran for four years, and the digitized records were presented on the website www.virgin-islands-history.org. There you can find an enormous number of records, descriptions, protocols, letters, and illustrations, all of which provide a unique insight into history. The documents became available to everyone on March 1st, 2017, via the website.

The documents from Denmark's colonial era in the West Indies were included in UNESCO's list of world cultural heritage in 1997 and are thus recognized as an important part of the world's cultural heritage. But for many years, the documents have almost only been used by a small group of particularly interested researchers in Denmark. The National Archives wanted everyone to have access to the sources - including all those who have family ties back to the colony, regardless of whether they live in the West Indies, in Denmark, or the USA.

The National Archives scanned and digitized most of the documents and offer a list of archive creators and archive series on the website. Now everyone has access to the documents without having to travel to Copenhagen, Denmark. It just requires a computer, access to the web, and a good portion of patience!

The website ‘The West Indian Heritage’ tells its story using the buildings as a framework for understanding the structure, function, and people of the colony who were either forced to risk their lives producing the coveted goods or benefited from the profits on the goods throughout the first 150 years of the colony’s history.

This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members and their supporters, images, news footage, an interactive timeline, and other sources about an important campaign to secure the treaty rights and sovereignty of Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest. Scroll to begin an exploration of the actions Native Nations took to address injustices.

This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers understand the efforts of Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest to protect and sustain salmon, water, and homelands. Scroll to begin an exploration of the Pacific Northwest history and cultures.

International Day for Monuments discussion with Former Senator Myron Jackson about the bust of King Christian the IX being removed from the Emancipation Gardens public space as a result of public outcry.

The measure appropriates $20,000 from the St. Thomas Capital Improvement Fund to cover the cost of removing and replacing the sculpture. Additionally, the program promotes new discourses, alternative and nuanced approaches to established historical narratives, and promotes inclusive and diverse points of view.

This is a BlendSpace lesson on the persuasive appeals - ethos, logos, and pathos. It involves note-taking, an understanding check quiz, and an application assignment in which students analyze a commercial or print ad for its use of ethos, logos, and pathos.

In this presentation, Elizabeth Rezende shares her research on the "New Shipping Routes and the Increase in Migration to St. Thomas Danish West Indies 1880-1916".

St. Thomas is the place where every hand, shakes hands with the other. Between the 1820s and 1890, St. Thomas was the first land mass transatlantic steamships met when following the trade winds directly from the Madeira Islands.

Thus, St. Thomas became a mid-point, a place where ships had to stop to get to another place. Steamships from Europe stopped at this multi-commercial island on their journey to the Caribbean, South and Central American ports for telegraphic messages and refueling. Likewise on the homeward- voyages from the Caribbean, South and Central America, ships again stopped at St. Thomas for refueling and received orders from their home offices.

In 1871, the Hamburg American Line determined that St. Thomas would be its Atlantic headquarters for its newly organized seven routes within the Caribbean Basin.

HAL sent out regularly scheduled ships carrying cargo, passengers, and mail every two weeks, creating increased business in the harbor. To accommodate the vessels’ pressed timeline, scores of unskilled laborers managed the loading and discharging of the goods and people, facilitating the ships’ readiness for the next port of call. In the census workers’ names, places of birth, and occupations were listed. In viewing the enumeration for an entire property, it can be determined that numbers of persons originally from the same islands of birth, such as Tortola and St. Croix, lived together in crowded tenements lining the harbor.

The enumerators of the Danish West Indian censuses of 1880 and 1901 were not only vigilant in entering the occupations of the seamen but also fastidious in filling out the last question, asking where the resident was if he were off-island on the day of the enumeration. Thus, we know in many cases from the censuses where a seaman was sailing and with what company.

Other trades people, such as self-employed vendors of fruits and vegetables, ferry-boat operators, and row- boat sailors, dragging lighters of cargo, were employed by independent sources, and were in the enumeration.

Additionally, a number of European recorders of travelogues comment on their observations and experiences of these routes, noting the high volume of activity among these laborers. Joseph Froude, Robert Woolward, and Anthony Trollope’s diaries give one perspective.

Froude was especially interested in the rate of pay of these groups of workers, and these rates have been corroborated with the payroll records deposited in RG 55 of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Elizabeth Rezende is an independent researcher. She has worked for forty years in studying various groups of people who have made St. Croix and St. Thomas home. Her dissertation focused on the free colored people of Free Gut, Christiansted. She has, under the auspices of the National Park Service, rendered community studies of other areas of greater Christiansted: Water Gut, Gallows Bay, and Market Square and Free Gut of Frederiksted. Her focus of study is the occupations of the residents in these areas of towns over a span of time.

Archaeologists are investigating foodways and re-creating meals prepared by enslaved people who lived in North America and the Caribbean to better understand their everyday lives and fill gaps in the historical record.