Re: Deane's of Barbados
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In reply to:
Re: Deane's of Barbados
Mary Fuhrer 3/21/11
Mary
Thanks for your response.
My email is [email protected].
The Deane's are coloured.
Charles Evelyn was a doctor at the time of the cholera epidemic (1854) and visited the Cuffley household to attend to the sister of Catherine Ann Cuffley.
He left his calling card.
That is the family oral tradition told me by my mother and uncle.
I found a Cuffley burial in 1854 which could be the sister who would have died from cholera but just a hunch so I can't confirm the story but suspect it is true.
Charles Evelyn was married and a member of a wealthy family. I have not seen his will as yet to determine how he provided for his daughter out of wedlock.
The white Cuffley family disappeared in Barbados in the 1720's.
Thomas Cuffley, the last one as far as I can determine, gave his slaves freedom in his will and a piece of land more than a century before emancipation. They took his surname.
I find Cuffley baptisms and marriages where free negroes and I think, free mulattoes are mentioned but I can't connect Catherine Ann Cuffley conclusively as there are missing records.
I am pretty sure there is a connection.
If I am right the Cuffley family lived through slavery as free negroes and mulattoes, baptising their children and marrying in the Anglican church.
I don't recall finding wills or deeds but will check again.
Emily Thomas Roberts I believe was coloured. I cannot track down her husband, George Henry Deane.
Charles Evelyn Deane was thus born to parents who were both coloured. I remember a picture of Pa Deane (George Elviston) and he looked white.
As far as I can determine George Elviston Roberts/Deane and Alice Amelia Alberta Cuffley/Evelyn had possibly nine children.
They were Hilda St. Clair Deane, George Henry Deane, Charles Evelyn Deane (died as an infant), Charles Evelyn Deane (yours), Emily Catherine Deane, Lilian Deane (not absolutely sure), John Bright Deane (died in his 90's) and Estwick Ebenezer Deane, died in 1985 at 91.
My uncle spoke of a Harry Deane who left the island but it could have been be heard Henry as in George Henry. That would have been the ninth child if there was a Harry. Maybe I misheard my uncle.
Many Barbadians left around that time for work with the Panama Canal and the US also offered opportunities. Some went to Brazil to build the railroad, some to Argentina.
My mother, Marjorie, is 89 and in good health.
She is in Miami with my sister, Kathleen.
My other sister is Jane, she lives here in Barbados. Both are married with children, four and three. I am single.
My mother was one of seven children.
She has three surviving brothers, Vere is 93, Errie is 91 and Keith is 87. A sister, Muriel died in 2003 at 89 and a brother, Colin, at 66 in 1982.
My mother was born in 1922.
I recall her telling me that there was confusion in the family over the child of a family member who had died in the States. This probably happened before or very shortly after she was born in 1922.
She told me that George Elviston Deane (Pa Deane) wanted to raise the child as his own but was refused.
George Elviston Deane was a tailor and his wife a seamstress. My aunt told me that he became a member of the Closed Brethren in later years so it is possible that is where the Episcopalian Minister came from.
He died in the 1930's, I think 1937, and I found a George Henry Deane on a passenger list at the time coming from the UK. He described himself as a man of colour.
Emily Catherine would have been the spinster sister. She died in 1955, before I was born. My mother referred to her as Aunt Emmy. They seem to have been good buddies.
John