By Rosaliene Bacchus -March 12, 2023
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Radical social change is possible. I saw it unfold as a teenager growing up in Guyana, a former British colony caught in the tight grip of the rich and powerful white sugar plantation owners. Such change demands courage, persistence, and self-determination. It means pushing upstream against the flow, ignoring the voices of naysayers, and not succumbing to discouragement and hopelessness when faced with setbacks and defeats. Winifred Gaskin (1916-1977) was a woman who displayed such traits to the fullest measure. |
Guyana: How Did My European Ancestors Migrate to Guyana? – Rohlehr family
Henry Louis Gates Jr. and NEHGS Researcher Meaghan Siekman
Dear Professor Gates: RE the Rohlehr family
I am a first-generation American whose family hails from Guyana (and, further back, Germany). My father has a German last name: Rohlehr (pronounced “Rohlair”). I would like to know more about my ancestors in that line who first came to Guyana from either Germany or the Netherlands.
The story goes that during the Bismarck era in Germany, my ancestor Gertrude Rohlehr had seven sons. Six were killed in war, so she sent her remaining son, Swartz, away from Germany to save him. He made his way to New Amsterdam, Guyana, from Holland, where he ended up having two sons, Peter and John, with an unknown African woman. Continue reading →
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