Pitkethly

[DonnaB@1964]

Thank u so much for that, that really is helpful, would you know how I would go about finding out about the Belize connection, what records I could access please

[Pam Downes]

Thank u so much for that, that really is helpful, would you know how I would go about finding out about the Belize connection, what records I could access please

Belize will come under the list of Central American countries in the link to Cyndi's List that Christina posted in message #3. However, the link to 'General resources' led to a security warning so I didn't click further. There is nothing listed for either Belize or British Honduras under the letter B.
I was going to say try contacting the Belizean Embassy in London, but I've now found a link to the Belizean Government.
https://www.belize.gov.bz/
My guess would be you want the Ministry beginning Finance and Labour, but if it's wrong they will dierct you to the correct one. Remember to keep your query simple - you would like to know if records exist for births/baptisms/marriages/deaths/burials 1820-1862, and if so, who would you contact for further information.

Pam

[christanel]

Louisa Binney nee Pitkelthy was divorced by her husband William because of her adultery, filed in April 1873. They married in Belize at St John's in 1866. The full details of the marriage are in the divorce papers which are on ancestry.com but doesn't give parent's names.
Your local library may have the free version if you don't have access to it. Whether the free version gives you access to all the content on the site I couldn't say. Interesting that Louisa refers to herself as a widow in the censuses after the divorce.
Evidently William Binney was absent from the marital home in Middlesex from April 1870 to June 1871 and Louisa became pregnant to an unknown man and the child was born about the 7 October 1871.
I can't find the birth of a child on the GRO index with the surnames Binney or Pitkelthy but Louisa may have returned to the Honduras for the birth or registered it under another surname, who knows.

Christina

[Megan Roberts]

Belize was effectively a British colony and in 1840 it was formally made a colony of Britsh Honduras. There were lots of British companies involved in trading in all sorts of things, including slaves who weren't freed until 1840. There's quite a lot on the web about the history of Belize and how it was fought over by the European powers.

[elsinore]

“A History of British Honduras” by William Arlington Donohoe is available to read online:

https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00099204/00001/1j

Other relevant works are listed in its bibliography.

Peter

[Lesley Robertson]

Now that this has turned into a very healthy research thread, I have moved it to "Brickwalls" (which fits the first post) because "Surnames" is only intended for people to register an interest in particular names.

[DonnaB@1964]

Thank you everyone for all your input, a lot of info to ponder over, ��

[Rob Pitkethly]

Did you manage to get any further with James William and Louisa's Belize beginnings? I'm one of James's great great grandchildren too and cannot find evidence of why they were in born there. I suppose that given they were sent back to Scotland for schooling they had reasonable family income? From the little I've read it seems many migrants to Belize went there either for the trade in tropical wood, or for religious reasons.
I have looked through all the documentation that my grandparents, Keith and Joan Pitkethly, had kept, but it mostly concerns her side of the family rather than the Pitkethlys.
The only intriguing thing I found was a will written or executed in 1938 which named Keith, his sister Yvonne, and their aunt Louisa Caroline Augusta Pitkethly as specific beneficiaries, plus the children of Kenneth Pitkethly and a Margaret Fuggle of Southborough, Kent. The will was written by Naomi Hope Deane of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, late 1938. She also named Emily and Matilda Hammond, of Tunbridge Wells, as beneficiaries. It seems likely, given all these Pitkethlys and Hammonds as beneficiaries, that she was a relative, but I guess more likely from Caroline Hammond's side that James William Pitkethly's (maybe her sister or niece?).

[DonnaB@1964]

I have just looked through my notes and all of those surnames I have come across, I have a relative found through the Dna testing of a Lucy Fuggle, we share a grandparent but not sure which one or how far back. All very intriguing indeed.