The Young Family in the Caribbean

The mutiny on the Bounty story never ceases to fascinate. An excellent recent article by Rick Kleiner of Norfolk Island summarises the background story for crew member Ned Young, who ended up on Pitcairn Island with Fletcher Christian.
Ned had received an education but little is known about his family of origin, except that he was born in the mid 1760s, possibly on the Caribbean island of St Kitts. His family was said to follow the tradition of naming the firstborn son ‘George', so it intrigues me that my forebear Dr George Young, the first curator of the new Botanic Garden at Kingstown on the Caribbean island of St Vincent in 1765, also gave his firstborn son the name 'George'.

Kingstown, St Vincent, c 1830

As in Ned's case, the good doctor's family of origin is unclear, but he was definitely born around 1726 and my research strongly links him to the colonial official Sir William Young, who was born at Antigua in the Caribbean in 1725 and died on St Vincent in 1788. Young Island near Kingstown was named after Sir William Young's family.
The genealogy of the Youngs residing in the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries is very patchy. Oh, how I long for it to be sorted out by the incremental contributions of family history researchers such as Rick Kleiner and myself! It is a tantalising thought that Ned Young and Dr George Young might have shared some common forebears.

Janet Reakes Memorial Award, 2011, & Dr George Young

During my recent seven week stint in Hong Kong, I was thrilled to receive email notification that I was placed second in the Janet Reakes Memorial Award for 2011. Entries for that Award closed last December and the results were announced on page 5 of Australian Family Tree Connections, May 2012. The full details will eventually be posted on the Janet Reakes Genealogy website.

In deciding to write on the competition's nominated topic, My Most Unusual Ancestor, I chose Dr George Young. He fascinated me because of his links to Sir Joseph Banks and an early Australian Governor, Captain William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Both Banks and Bligh were men of great influence in Australia's early history, on which topic I've already published two non-fiction books, and one of my favourite books is 'The Conjuror's Bird', by Martin Davies, an imagined version of a mysterious part of Banks' life. I'm currently writing about another figure of influence in the world of botany, the scientific botanical artist Margaret Flockton (see my Flockton Family History blog).  Margaret's grandmother was a granddaughter of Dr George Young.

It was difficult to meet the guidelines for the Janet Reakes competition within the required maximum of 2,000 words, excluding citations. The article not only needed to present an interesting biography, it needed to explain the genealogical steps involved in 'uncovering' the story. Subsequently I wrote an amended, updated version of Dr George Young's story. I hope you'll agree that Young's life was unusual, worth researching and worth writing about.