British Honduras / Belize

[joanne56]

Does anybody know if there are any passenger records (or anything at all ) that may show names of emigrants to British Honduras, (Belize) particularly late 1800's. What was then a British Colony and is still an English speaking nation was pretty much overtaken by the Brits for quite some time. there must be something out there??!!
Joanne

[liverpool annie]

Hi Joanne !

There was a British Garrison in Belize - maybe if you have somebody particular in mind - you could trace and see if there is a military record !!    and also the Slave Trade operated out of the Island ...... here's a couple of sites that may help with background !

http://www.oldbelize.com/about.html

http://biology.unm.edu/biology/461L/BELIZE_INFO.HTM

Annie 

[joanne56]

Hi thanks for your interest.
You are right I am looking to trace someone who served in british army during WW2. I do have his Air Force registration number but I believe all military records were handed over to the Belize Government after Independance in 1981.
The LDS site has some reference to Belize and it looks as though this might be the only avenue i can follow.
I have been emailing a chap in belize who said he could help me but he hasn't come up with anything yet and it has been months now so I am begining to suspect that he can't find anything either.
I do know that my Belizean relative's Father was British (probably Scottish) and his Mother native to Belize, not sure when said Father arrived in Belize but suspect around 1920 as my relative was born 1924. (thats why I was wondering about ships  records to Belize ) By the way the Father was a "Lumber Contractor" so obviously went out there to work.
Regards Joanne

[GreySquirrel]

There are plenty of people sailing from British Isles to Belize 1890-1919 if you search on www.ancestorsonboard.com - you can search by surname + destination country to narrow your results. You can also search by port - there is Belize and also Commerce Bight (which I think was mainly for banana export rather than a passenger terminus) - but that's probably not necessary even if the surname is really common.

Unfortunately, the 1920s passenger lists are not on the website yet.

I have a little encyclopaedia from 1920 which says the total population of British Honduras in 1918 was 42,732. The number of British in that figure is not stated but I doubt that it would have been above 1,000.

[Valda]

I'm sure all the domestic administration's records for Belize were handed over at the time of independence - the civil servants would have needed them to continue government and presumably military records that pertained to the then Belize domestic army, but are you sure British Army (or was he in the airforce?) Second World soldiers/airmens' records were handed over? I can't see the army sifting through all its back records looking for nationals of countries which were being gradually made independent to hand them over. How would they tell where these people were then living (if alive) and what nationality they then had? If 'colonial' soldiers were in receipt of a pension for a disability that would be the British Government's responsibility not a newly formed government who didn't exist at the time of the Second World War, so I can't quite see how this sort of documentation could have been handed over in 1981 for soldiers/airforcemens' documents that were then at least 36 years old?
My only experience of C20th soldiers' records is First World War documentation. I have a copy of a British National (born and lived in India all his life - he may have been Anglo-India. His service was in India only during the war). His documents were in the National Archives transfered from the Ministry of Defence.
Did your soldier/airmen only serve in Belize during the Second World War? Was he a Belize or a British National?
Second World War soldiers' documents are still held by the Ministry of Defence.

Regards

Valda