Jamaican roots revival
Just another family?
Is your family history full of freak demographics - or commonplace? How typical is your family?
The Johnson family are off on a family reunion..all 250 of them!
Linda and Shirley Johnson are sisters from a British mixed race family who take a trip in search of their roots to Jamaica. It’s a programme about identity but also about the sort of family history which generations growing up in this country can so easily lose.
Linda and Shirley’s mother Joan met their Jamaican dad Johnny on the boat train from Ireland, just after the Second World War.
But until Linda and Shirley were ‘discovered’ by their Jamaican family a few years ago, their connections to Jamaica, where they have never even been, were tenuous.
Their story takes us on a journey through the historical links between Jamaica and Britain as the two women piece together their family story and their family’s supposed links to slavery before abolition in 1838.
Content last updated: 07/12/2005
