So this is the track.
I spent pretty much every day here.
This was just my whole life, really, for so many years.
It's not changed, though. It's exactly the same.
Jessica Ennis-Hill is one of the world's greatest
track and field athletes.
I started athletics when I was nine or ten years old,
and from that point I was always training
and working towards that end goal, you know, becoming an Olympian.
The pinnacle of her career was at London 2012,
when she won the Olympic gold medal for the heptathlon.
COMMENTARY:And here goes Jess!
It was just the best experience ever and me feeling mentally ready to go,
physically in the best shape of my life.
COMMENTARY:Jessica Ennis is the Olympic champion!
It's a really interesting question,
like, what does it take to become an Olympic champion?
I think I owe my success to my resilience
and mentality during those times.
So I am really interested to understand
where some of those traits come from.
Awarded a damehood for services to athletics,
Jess was born and raised in Sheffield.
So I've literally been rooted in Sheffield my whole life,
where my family are and all those people closest to me.
There was me, my mum Alison, my dad Vinnie and my little sister Carmel.
My mum was born and brought up in the Peak District,
and my dad's family are from Jamaica.
And then my grandparents, particularly my grandad Rod,
was very hands on with all my athletics.
So many 800 metre sessions around here.
I can remember how...oh, how hard it was.
I just wanted to be the best I could be,
and that was something that was kind of instilled in me from a young age.
I think to understand what my ancestors have been through
and the challenges that they faced,
whether there was something that fed down to me
to help me get to the top of my game,
would be really interesting to find out.
I'm maybe a bit of a control freak,
so I'm always kind of prepared and know what's coming up next.
Whereas with this experience and this journey,
I don't really know anything.
I don't know what I'm going to find, who I'm going to find.
Erm, yeah. What details?
It's just a massive unknown.
So this is the Peak District,
and this is obviously an area that is so close to my heart
because my grandparents live out here.
Me and my sister would spend so much time coming out here
for weekends and sleepovers,
so it's a really familiar place for me.
Jess is starting with her mum's side of the family.
She's visiting her grandparents Rodney and Margaret
to find out what they can tell her.
Hi. Hey, Jess. You all right? Yeah. I'm good, thanks. You? Yeah.
Nice to see you again.
Can you remember when you were seven and I used to time you
running up and down this yard?
Yeah. And each time you wanted to do it faster.
Was that you wanting to time me? No, no, it was you.
It was you. Because you love competition.
Do you know what? It felt so much longer than it looks now.
But, yeah, I do remember. Yeah.
So I've come to find a little bit more about your side of the family.
So is there anything you can tell me?
We've got some photographs here.
That's you when you were a little girl with your mum.
Oh, I've never seen this one.
Mum looks so young.
Look at her hair!
She's rocking that hair!
Oh. This is a photograph of you.
I remember that jumper so well. I loved it.
You did love it. You wore it all the time. Yeah.
It's a great picture. Yeah.
This is my dad.
Your great-grandad Ray.
Wow! With all his trophies.
Great-grandad Ray Ollerenshaw. Yeah. That's a collection.
Yeah. It's like he's trying to outshine me there, isn't he?!
They were all for sheepdog trialling.
Wow. I did not know this. This is so exciting.
I mean, obviously, I've always been super competitive.
I always wondered, is there some, like, genetic part of it?
It sounds like it probably came from my great-grandad Ray.
Yeah. Well, he got the OBE for services to farming.
So between you, you've got them all.
Me and great-grandad Ray... Yeah. ..we've cleaned up!
That's amazing.
So what about your side of the family, Grandad?
Well, that's one of you with my dad, your great-grandad Jack.
I remember that one.
You were very lucky, really, because you had your great-grandad
in your life for 20 years, didn't you?
Yeah. I feel like I got to know him really well,
even though I was still quite young.
Such a great sense of humour. Yeah.
That's him with his father, William Powell.
So that's, like, your great-great-grandad.
And the girl is Little Maud,
your great-grandad's sister.
Oh, wow.
And that's a copy of Jack's birth certificate.
So, born 10th August 1911.
So his mother was Emily Maud Powell.
So she was my great-great-grandmother. Yeah.
Her full name was Emily Maud,
but she was known as Maud.
And we don't really know anything about her at all,
because one day, William took Jack and Maud out for a walk.
And when they came back,
they met their mum coming down the street with a suitcase.
And she just kissed him and he never saw her again.
Really? Yeah. And where did she go? Well, we don't know.
So great-grandad never saw her again? No.
And he never, ever talked about it.
Never, ever.
That must have been so... It's sad, isn't it? ..awful.
It's sad, really. So how old was he then?
He'd be, erm, about seven or eight.
It would be nice to know. I mean, even if it's sad...
Yeah. ..it's nice to know what happened to them.
Losing your mum and just not having an explanation. Yeah.
Wow.
I mean, we've started off quite...
..quite deep already.
I wasn't expecting this from the start. Yeah. Wow.
So I feel like there's definitely a bit of a mystery...
Yeah, there is. Yeah. ..to solve already with this one here.
With the help of her grandparents,
Jess can now take her maternal family tree back four generations.
She's also uncovered a century-old mystery -
the sudden disappearance of her great-great-grandmother Emily Maud,
known to the family as Maud.
She seemingly abandoned her children,
Jess's great-grandfather Jack and his sister Little Maud.
It's really surprising to find out that my great-grandad Jack's mum
gave them a kiss one day and packed her suitcases and went.
And then they never saw her again.
It's just really, really sad.
I'd love to know what happened, what changed.
You know, how was she feeling to leave like that?
Where did she go? Did she start another family? I don't know.
To find out if there are any records that might shed light
on her great-great-grandmother's disappearance,
Jess has come to Sheffield City Archives
to meet historian Dr Jennifer Aston.
So I'm trying to find out more about my great-great-grandmother Maud.
So my great-grandad's mother.
Erm, and there's a bit of a mystery around what happened to her.
I think we can show you this document
that might show you a little bit more. OK.
If we look in the magistrates court records,
we can see more about the relationship
between William and Maud.
Where do we start?
So this is a magistrates court,
which is a smaller local court in the city of Sheffield.
Yeah. In 1919.
So it says number 48 here, Maud Powell,
and then defendant William Powell.
My great-great-grandparents. Yes.
So what we have is Maud Powell as a complainant
and then William as a defendant.
And then nature of offence - assaulting complainant.
So William assaulted Maud?
Well, that's what she's accused him of,
and that's the case that's been brought to court.
I suppose I didn't know what had happened and why she left.
And my initial thought was, gosh,
how could she have just walked away and left her children?
And then obviously now,
it looks like there was some kind of physical abuse in the home,
which is really awful.
So it was June 30th 1919...
..when obviously she left the family.
Erm...
And then he was found not guilty.
Well, his plea was... Oh, his plea was not guilty. Yeah.
We can see what happens in the case if we look in this final column.
"Withdrawn."
Maud decided to withdraw the case... Oh, she withdrew it. Yeah.
And why would she do that? We have a clue.
If we look here, it says to see number 58 below.
OK. So number 58 here.
"Information for order on desertion."
And what does that mean?
So an order on desertion can be issued
if a husband deserts his wife.
So if we keep following... So order by consent...
..to pay.
So the court's ordering him to pay 12 shillings and sixpence
to Maud every week.
And that gives her the money needed to live respectably. OK.
It's enough for her not to starve or be destitute.
So by her withdrawing,
was that a way of coming to a bit of an agreement?
He pays for her to continue living, but separately.
I think that sounds quite likely.
I think what these events show
is the kind of legal unravelling of their relationship.
We see the assault case being brought to court on 30th June.
A week later, there's a maintenance order.
She's on her own. Wow.
In 1919, getting a divorce was incredibly difficult and expensive,
but couples did separate, and women like Maud
could apply for maintenance on grounds of desertion.
For most women, separation meant having to leave the marital home
and leaving the children with their father.
She was obviously suffering and not living a very nice life,
and then she's the one that has to leave the home
and leave her kids.
But I suppose the question is, where did she go? OK.
So this is two years after the cases
that we see in the magistrates courts.
So this is a census from 1921.
So South Yorkshire...
..Asylum?
Yes.
Gosh.
This is a list of all the people
who were in the institution on the census day.
They've been identified by initials.
So Emily...
..Maud Powell. Yeah? That's her.
Wow.
I didn't expect to find that.
I'm just, erm, quite shocked.
There's so many questions I want to know.
I feel like you've helped me answer a few,
but you've unravelled so many more questions.
I kind of understand what happened
with their relationship and their marriage.
But then I found out that two years later, Maud was in an asylum.
So this is the census for 1921
and it says South Yorkshire Asylum, Wadsley.
I want to go there.
Erm, I've just got to know more of what happened to her.
Wadsley is a quiet suburb, three miles from Sheffield city centre.
Jess has come to the grounds of what was once South Yorkshire Asylum
to meet historian Dr Alice Brumby.
Hi, Alice. Hello, Jess. Oh, really nice to meet you.
Pleased to meet you. Thank you for seeing me.
So is this the original building?
Is this what it would have looked like for Maud when she was here?
Yes, it would have been.
What we're standing in front of now is the administration block.
And this is an image of how big it used to be.
Wow. It's huge.
South Yorkshire was a public asylum run by the local authority.
It cared for over 1,000 patients in 1921,
when Maud was recorded on the census as living there.
I just really want to find out why, why was Maud here?
I've got your great-great-grandmother Maud's
admission records here, if you'd like to take a look.
Yeah. That's the first one.
So name of patient, Emily Maud Powell.
Female, 35 years.
17th November 1919.
So after the court case?
OK.
So, "I, the undersigned, William Smith Porter, medical officer,
"I personally examined the said Emily Maud Powell
"and came to the conclusion that she is a person of unsound mind.
'She has delusions that she was communicating secrets
"she heard during the war,
"and she says that she heard these secrets
"spoken in the streets under the windows,
"and that her actions had influence on the war.
"She has also a delusion that she has been robbed of valuable papers."
Gosh.
"Whether dangerous to others and in what way?
"Yes. Violent and excitable at times."
Wow. I didn't expect...
..to read that.
And do we know more about her actual diagnosis?
If we were going to think about
how it might translate to today's illnesses,
she's clearly suffering from kind of psychotic instances.
We could perhaps say potentially it's schizophrenia,
potentially bipolar.
But she's never actually given a diagnosis.
And I wonder what kind of treatment she actually had
when she was there, though?
OK. So there's kind of sedative drugs that they could give her
because of her excitement, because of her delusions.
So drugs to make her a little bit sleepy, a little bit calmer.
OK.
So, "Whether first attack? No."
What does that mean?
That she's been poorly before.
What you need to look at here is the date.
"When and where previously under care and treatment.
"The 23rd to 30th of January 1919."
Oh, no. So I'm confused.
So the 23rd to 30th of January 1919,
she's struggling, she's having problems.
She's not very well. Yeah.
This happened before the court case.
And then July, she went to court
to put a claim against her husband for assaulting her,
but actually it seems that she had the violent tendencies.
And then November 1919, she suffers another attack...
..before she's then committed? Yes.
It's just awful in every way.
I wonder if my great-grandad Jack actually knew.
He may well not have done.
There was a huge stigma attached to mental health care
during this period,
so it's possible that it would be preferable
to tell the children that she just left,
as opposed to the fact that she was poorly and needed help.
Yeah.
I just feel so sad for my great-grandad Jack
and his sister Little Maud.
Do we know...
..anything else? I think we should look at the next document. OK.
So... OK, this is a death certificate.
Oh, my gosh.
Little Maud, the daughter.
Oh, it's really sad.
Oh, God.
I was like, "I will not cry."
Erm...
Oh, so Maud was 11.
This is 1924.
And the cause of death is mitral obstruction.
It's basically a condition of the heart.
I can't imagine how Maud must have...
..taken it...and that she wasn't there.
We don't know whether she got told that her daughter had died or not.
For fear of making her worse? Potentially.
I'm just in shock.
I just did not expect to find this.
I don't know who knew about this.
I don't... It's so sad.
Yeah.
I just know how, obviously as a mother,
and that emotion of thinking how would I feel
if I wasn't with my kids,
how Maud must have felt when she had to leave them,
and then the realisation now, here, that, you know, she never...
..she would never have got to see her daughter again. Mm.
It's so sad.
And so Maud stayed...
She stayed in the asylum?
Well, our final document might shed a little bit of light on to that.
What is this?
"Emily Maud Powell received at this hospital
"on transfer on 6th January 1944."
So she leaves to be transferred to another hospital
called Storthes Hall in Huddersfield.
Gosh. I'm just... Yeah, just... I'm in shock.
I don't know how much my great-grandfather knew,
but it definitely changes the narrative for the family
because the assumption was that she left one day
for, you know, no reason.
No-one knew why she left, and it was hard to understand,
you know, why she would do that,
but, actually, we now know the reasons for why she left.
For her to be in that asylum for 25 years,
that is such a long time.
And I don't know if she ever came out.
To find out more,
Jess is heading to what was once Storthes Hall Hospital,
where her great-great-grandmother Maud was transferred in 1944.
She's here to meet historian Dr Stephen Taylor.
Hi, Stephen. Hi. Nice to meet you, Jess. Nice to meet you, too.
Thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. You're welcome.
Obviously, I've been on a bit of a journey trying to find out,
you know, a bit more about my great-great-grandmother's life.
So I suppose I'd love to just know more about how long she was here
and what was it like while she was staying here?
Yeah, well, we've got these photographs.
There's three that depict what life was like...
Thank you. ..here in the asylum.
Oh, wow.
So they had hairdressers? Yes.
Gosh.
A shop? Yes, very much a community.
She would have probably made friends with people on the wards.
She would have had people who knew her.
Also, patients worked quite often.
She might have been in the laundries
or working on needlework and dressmaking.
So life here would have had elements of a care facility
rather than a hospital. Mm.
It makes me feel a little bit better that, obviously,
it wasn't just a case of, you know, you have your treatment
and whatever that might be.
There was actually space to kind of live her life in a certain way.
And then I suppose my next question is...
..you know, did she...did she leave?
So we have a document that comes from 1970.
OK.
This is the death certificate.
And the date of death on here is 13th February 1970.
It says here that she died in North Spring House in Kirkburton.
Yes. So North Spring House was another name for Storthes Hall.
It was a way of protecting the family almost
from the stigma of the mental hospital.
So still just keeping it a secret and covering it up, essentially.
Essentially. Wow.
So...
..she didn't leave? She didn't leave, sadly.
And this was 1970?
Yes.
And she came in in 1919, in Sheffield.
That is such a long time.
My great-grandad Jack would have been about 58
and my grandad would have been about 31.
And then my mum would have been born
and she would have been about four years old.
So Maud had this whole expanding family that she didn't know about,
and they didn't know about her.
It's almost like she didn't exist, in a way.
I don't even know what she looks like.
I might be able to help you with that.
Oh, wow.
This was her. That's incredible.
It's so, so nice to see a picture of her.
Yeah. You see a person.
Yeah. This is an actual person.
Hopefully, she had some kind of life within here.
Oh...
At the start of this journey,
I couldn't understand why she would leave her children,
her family, her life,
but, actually, she didn't want to leave her children.
But she had to.
Experiencing something like that at the age great-grandad Jack did
could have had a really negative effect on his life.
And from what I saw and the person he was, that wasn't the case.
You know, he dealt with it and he created his own future.
And, erm, yeah, that's...
That's really amazing.
Now Jess has found out more about the maternal side of her family,
she wants to investigate her Jamaican heritage.
So she's heading back to Sheffield to meet up with her dad Vinnie.
My dad was always very conscious
that although he'd lived here for so many years,
he was still very much Jamaican.
And I think he really wanted me and my sister
to always understand that side of our heritage.
And I remember my mum and dad weaned me on liquidised tripe.
And for my dad that was...you know, that's normal.
He would eat cow's feet and, you know, that kind of thing
was, you know, a Jamaican delicacy.
You know, my mum and dad both say that that's why I'm such a...
..well, I was such a good athlete -
because I had a diet of liquidised tripe!
So I'm heading to Meersbrook Road, which is in Sheffield,
and I'm going to meet my dad there to see the house that he moved to
with his family when he first moved here from Jamaica
all those years ago.
Vinnie Ennis moved to Meersbrook in south Sheffield
when he was 13 years old.
Hi, Dad. Wagwan, Jess. You all right? You OK? Yes.
Nice seeing you, girl. How are you keeping, all right?
I'm good. Good.
This is where it all started, Jess.
Your first house. This is my first address
when I came to England in 1963. Wow.
The current owners have let Jess and Vinnie take a look inside.
When your dad first came to England, this is where we lived.
And my brother, auntie, uncle, cousins.
I had a lot of fun here, really,
even though there were a lot of us living here.
Have you got any pictures to share? Erm, the first one...
Oh, this... This one's a lovely picture.
I remember that bed.
That... I mean, tapes, it had an in-built stereo!
And look at Mel's little cheeky face.
She's still got a cheeky faces. She's got the same cheeky face.
Yeah.
And your passport? The passport. Yes, the passport.
That's your dad.
You look completely different. Totally, isn't it?
That was probably taken, erm, the year before we came here.
So you were born in Linstead.
Linstead, St Catherine. Yeah.
You've got your stamp for 24th January 1963.
So I think... That's the day when you came. Yeah.
I mean, of all the months to come... Shocking, Jess.
..from Jamaica to England,
January has got to be the worst, hasn't it?
And the weather was so bad, Jess.
It's just snow.
I literally cried.
I just wanted to be back on my island, you know?
What other pictures have you got?
Right, this one is where...?
You tell me.
Wow.
Grandma and Grandad.
Winston Ennis. Yeah.
My grandma, they called her Grace, but her proper name is Muriel.
Muriel? Muriel, yeah. Oh, wow.
I didn't really know them that well. No, you didn't.
He was a nice dad. He really was.
It's a good picture, though.
So what was life like for Grandma Grace and Grandad Winston
when they first moved here?
Erm, from what I can gather, it weren't very nice for them
because there was a lot of racism.
And, you know, they'd go on the bus and people have a go at them.
But, erm, they just got on with it
because they had kids to support and things like that.
And what did they do for work when they came here?
Do you know? Your grandad's a builder.
I think Mum trained up to be a nurse.
OK, yeah. I remember you saying. Yeah.
We came and we settled down and just kind of got on with life.
So, I mean, I've never been to Jamaica.
I haven't been for 60 years. Yeah. You've never been back.
I've never been back, no.
But I just feel like now's the time where I have this opportunity to,
you know, go to Jamaica, and I want to find out more about my family.
And I'm really looking forward to going back. Yeah.
For us to do it together is special.
For us to do it together is just a special thing. Yeah.
Jess and her dad have travelled over 4,500 miles to Jamaica.
I don't know what I imagined it would be like, but it's amazing.
Like, just the little rivers and all the fruit on the trees
and the heat.
The heat is nice!
It's Jess's first-ever visit to the island,
and she's starting her journey by heading to where her dad grew up,
a town called Linstead in the parish of St Catherine.
So we're on our way to Linstead.
Yes. We're going to go and meet some of the family.
I've heard names and lots of aunts.
And there's lots of cousins.
But I've never met many of them.
Yeah, I'm so excited, Jess, you won't believe it.
Jess's extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins
have gathered in Linstead to welcome her and Vinnie.
Oh, it's so nice to meet you.
Oh, nice to finally meet you.
I remember Aunt Edna. You remember Aunt Edna, good. Lovely.
Oh.
I've met everyone. I know everyone now.
You know everyone. OK.
That's good, that's good.
Hey, man.
Sorry me take so long.
Long to come. Oh, but you are here now. You are here now.
Mm.
Yeah, it's really surreal to actually be here because, you know,
I've heard so many stories that my dad's told over the years
about his time here.
And for me to see it in real life and meet the rest of the family,
and, yeah, it's just really emotional.
To help her trace her family further back,
Jess is talking to Edna, her grandmother Grace's younger sister.
Jessica, it's so nice to meet you.
Oh, thank you for having me.
I am your great-auntie, sister of Grace.
My grandmother Grace, yeah.
So you're one of 12? I'm one of 12.
Seven girls and five boys.
That's a big family. But I'm the last of the 12.
You're the last one? Yes.
So this house was where we lived.
And it meant a lot to us as children.
I really cherish the memories of Mum and Dad.
Look at him.
Wow. So this is... That's my father.
So my great-grandad. Yes. Your great-grandad.
And his name is James Thomas.
Wow. And we called him Imey.
Wow.
He looks very smart.
Imey.
He really was a lovely man. You would have loved him, Jessica.
This is...
..a picture of my mother.
Wow. Louise White.
My great-grandma. Your great-grandma.
She looks so...
Very proper and very... She was. ..you know, very well dressed.
Beautiful white dress. You can see the buttons down the middle.
Hair's perfect.
Even going down the road,
she would make sure that she's properly dressed.
She was so well put together.
So where was grandma, my great-grandma Louise, born?
The area was known as St John's.
Now, in the White family, they have a lot of farms.
Coffee was one of the main products, along with sugar cane.
So great-grandma's family, you know,
they come from quite a wealthy family, really, with lots of land.
Yes. So we still have a lot of land here.
And where does it all come from?
From what I can recall, it was always there.
My mum's side of the family, they all have big farms,
and all the family around would seem to be very productive.
Gosh. I'd love to understand where it all started for them.
Meeting her relatives has helped Jess trace her Jamaican ancestry
back to her great-grandparents, James - or Imey - Thomas,
and Louise White, who came from a landowning family.
So while her dad stays to catch up,
Jess wants to find out how the White family came to own so much land.
She's come to St John's Anglican Church
in the parish where her great-grandmother was born
to meet historian Dr Shani Roper.
Hi.
Hi. Really nice to meet you.
I'm Shani. Nice to meet you, Shani.
Welcome to St John's Anglican Church,
one of the oldest churches in the country.
So I've found out a little bit about my family.
My great-grandma Louise, her family had a lot of land.
And I'm trying to understand, you know, where it all started.
OK, so as we start that journey,
I'd like to share this will with you...dated 1900.
So this is the will for George McLeod White.
So this is your three times great-grandfather.
Wow.
So, "I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Mary Ann White,
"my dwelling house and furniture,
"with a piece of land with coffee and fruit trees."
And then he's saying he's giving to his son, Felix Augustus White...
So this is your two times... Great-grandfather. Right.
"Two acres of land off Long Hill."
It looks like he owns maybe about 15 acres of land.
Yes, that's exactly correct.
So he's got a lot of land. He's got a lot of land.
And then got passed down through the family to Felix,
to then Louise, who's my great-grandmother.
Absolutely.
Can we trace this line any further back, though?
I'm going to show you this record.
So this is the marriage between George McLeod White
and Mary Ann Smith.
And so they got married April 21st 1880.
Right.
So I just want you to look at that column.
Yeah, so the father of George McLeod White was George Thomas White.
Right.
So we now know that he was my four times great-grandfather.
Yeah.
But do we know anything more about him?
Well, now that you've asked!
What do we know? Yeah, we have another record.
OK. So registered deaths.
And it's for George Thomas White.
So my fourth time great-grandfather. Right.
And he died on 3rd June 1879.
Mm-hm.
And he lived to 90 years.
Yes. A good age.
And then his occupation was a cooper.
And what does that mean?
OK, so a cooper is a person who makes the barrel to hold rum...
Mm-hm. ..for the ageing process.
So it's actually a very important profession to have at that time.
Do we know anything else about George Thomas White's life?
Yes. We have one more record for you to look at.
OK.
This is a baptismal record.
So this is 1823.
OK, George Thomas White.
This record originates from this church.
So he was here?
Yeah.
That's incredible. There's some additional information.
So he was aged 28.
"And where belonging - Water Mount Estate."
So where is Water Mount Estate?
Water Mount Estate no longer exists
because originally it would be a sugar plantation.
So a sugar estate.
So what this record tells us is that, more than likely,
based on the time period that we're talking about, which is 1823,
that George Thomas White was born into slavery
and he was enslaved at the Water Mount sugar estate.
So he, you know... Essentially, he was a slave.
Right.
So the term that we use in the Caribbean is "enslaved".
He was enslaved.
Right, because slavery is a state that's imposed. Yeah.
You know, it's not a natural state of being.
Mm-hm. Right?
So...
And it's one way to recognise the humanity of the person
who is living and navigating through the system of slavery.
And so because he's 28 here and that's 1823,
so that means he was born in 1795?
About that time.
One of the things is that, for this period,
it's very difficult to get an exact date. OK.
Because you don't have birth certificates
for persons born during slavery.
You're considered an asset, not a person.
So this is a really important document.
It's a very important document.
And I will tell you that this is phenomenal. Really?
Because most people cannot trace their family this far back. Wow.
Yeah. Did not expect to find all this.
I just want to know more. I want to know more about George Thomas White.
I want to know about his life.
Just to understand what he's been through because he...
I feel like it really starts here with him.
I suppose, in a way, when half of your heritage is Jamaican,
there's that thought of, you know, were my relatives enslaved
at some stage in their life?
But to actually be here and trace right back
and understand that my family members have been through
the most awful period of time and been subjected to,
you know, unimaginable lives, really, erm, yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to see it, you know, right out in front of you.
So I just want to know
what my four times great-grandfather went through
because there's a big switch from when he was enslaved,
and then a generation down the line,
it kind of changed a lot for our family.
We owned land and we were able to pass that down
to further generations.
So I'd like to understand, you know, the real root of it.
What did they have to overcome and how did they do it?
Jess has now pushed her paternal family tree back six generations
to the 18th century.
She's discovered land ownership in the family
as far back as her three times great-grandfather,
George McLeod white, but his father,
her four times great-grandfather George Thomas White
was enslaved on a sugar estate, where he worked as a cooper.
To find out more about what George's life might have been like,
Jess is heading to Hampden Estate, which has grown sugar cane
and distilled it into rum since the 1760s.
She's joined by historian Dr Suzanne Francis-Brown.
So this is the old rum store. OK.
So this is where the rum is being kept
in large casks for ageing.
Your four times great-grandfather would have used metal bands
to hold them together so tightly that the liquid would not escape.
Wow. So he was... He was a skilled man.
Absolutely. He would have been an artisan.
It was one of the major skills required on the estate.
Jamaica was colonised by Britain in 1655.
Over one million people were enslaved and transported from Africa
to labour on the island's sugar plantations.
It soon became one of the world's biggest producers of sugar and rum,
generating enormous wealth for British estate owners.
Hundreds of thousands more, like Jess's ancestor George Thomas White,
were born into slavery.
I found records of my four times great-grandfather.
He was enslaved, but I don't know how long he was enslaved
and I don't know what his life would have been like.
One of the ways in which we try and find out a lot of information,
we go back to something called the slave returns or slave registers.
Erm, and they give certain sorts of information
about all of the persons who were enslaved in Jamaica. OK.
So what I have here is the 1817 return for the Water Mount Estate,
the property where your four times great-grandfather was enslaved.
So do you want to take a look?
It starts here with the owner's information.
So I can see the owners were James Williams
and Ann Williams? Mm-hm.
And...
..this is a list of males who were here.
Erm... So many.
I can see a Thomas there, but he would be...
He would be on here as George.
Unfortunately, you're not going to find George. Not like that.
You're four times great-grandfather
was baptised as George Thomas White in 1823.
This is 1817.
We don't know what his name was at that point.
He could have had a completely different name.
This would have been everybody
that was living on that estate in 1817.
It's like a snapshot.
So do you know how, you know, the owners of a property like this
would actually treat, you know, enslaved people
and what it would have been like for them?
Slavery was a brutal system,
in the sense that it was about people being used
in the way machines are presently used
in order to create benefit for their owners.
On some estates, erm, overseers would have been encouraged
to use the whip to drive people as hard as it was possible.
They often worked from daylight to sunset. Yeah.
These people were part of what made it economical
to produce these products.
Yeah. And with my four times great-grandfather,
George Thomas White, I know that he was a cooper.
Did he see an opportunity in life beyond his existence here?
So in 1833, an act was passed for the abolition of slavery,
but it included a number of caveats,
one of the main ones being that enslaved people
should serve a period of another four to six years as apprentices.
Within the same estate? Within the same estate.
And you were bound to work 40.5 hours each week, free,
for your former enslaver.
My four times great-grandfather must have been here feeling,
"I'm going to be free," but then actually no.
Mm-hm. Me sat here listening to that
brings such a level of frustration and disbelief.
I can't imagine how it must have felt.
It's almost like that carrot's been dangled,
like, here's the potential, this is what you could have,
but it's not going to happen for four to six years.
Like, that is a long period. Yeah.
Rather than abolish slavery in Jamaica immediately,
the British government introduced a transitional period
called the Apprenticeship System.
Now known as an apprentice, Jess's ancestor George Thomas White
remained in forced labour for 40.5 hours per week.
Whilst enslaved, people had been forced to work much longer hours,
so to maintain their operations,
estate owners offered additional hours in return for a small wage,
known as "work for hire".
So here is another document,
which is a copy of a dispatch from the governor
to the lord in England.
OK, so the estates where apprentices work for hire.
Right.
So I'm looking for Water Mount.
So Water Mount here and it says, "Refuse to work for hire."
Right. So everybody said they don't want the...
A large number of...
The majority, they don't want the extra hours.
They don't want to do any more work.
The hope was that whatever extra hours the planters offered,
the apprentices would take up,
and they would therefore earn some additional money for that,
and the planters would get the labour that they needed. OK.
So in in this instance... It's been refused.
Right. So... So they were offered... But they absolutely have refused.
At this point, the planters know
that they're losing their labour force.
Yeah, I suppose that they were losing control.
You know, the plantation owners.
It just speaks so loudly that George Thomas White,
he was potentially one of those people that said,
"No, I'm not giving any more to this estate.
"Enough's enough."
And that...
You know, that makes me incredibly proud
that he was one of those people.
So do we know what he went to do, you know, when he was set free?
We have some good ideas which we're going to share with you.
Jess and Suzanne are travelling
to what was once the Water Mount Estate,
the place where George Thomas White was enslaved.
It's quite a strange feeling to...
..be stood here.
This view probably hasn't changed that much.
It's what he would have seen.
It feels quite sombre.
It just feels like it's got...
..I don't know, quite a negative energy I feel walking down here.
So do you think this building was here?
Well, not in its current state because this is a modern structure.
Yeah. But it's on old... It's on old foundations.
You can see... Yeah, yeah. All the way around.
Oh, look down here.
Is that 1764?
That sure is.
Those are initials at the top. Can you see?
It's something "W". Mm-hm.
Is this James Williams that was the owner
on the slave registration forms?
So this would actually have been James Williams's father,
who was also James Williams. OK.
And he was the earlier owner of the estate.
And then passed down. And then it was passed down.
That's crazy to see that.
You feel how deep those incisions are. Yeah.
But, yeah, it's very strange to think that it's still here
after all those years.
1764. Mm-hm.
And it obviously carries so much history and emotion
and a lot of pain.
It feels quite eerie.
You know, that connection with me standing here,
looking at that, reading that.
It just collapses time. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel like I've found out so much more
about my fourth time great-grandfather already,
but I still don't understand where the land came from in our family
and how did we acquire this land?
I think the first thing to think
is that your four times great-grandfather had abilities
that allowed him to earn.
He was a cooper, so after the emancipation,
his skills would have continued to be important.
Sugar and rum continued to be important parts of the economy.
So from that period on,
he'd have been more or less in control of his circumstances.
Yeah. But I think you'll be interested in this.
So this is actually, erm, a land conveyance document.
"This indenture made between James Williams
"of that part of the United Kingdom
"and George Thomas White of the parish of St John...
"..that in consideration of the sum of £160."
And it says, "Assigns all those two several pieces or parcels of land
"being in the parish of St John,
"being part of the Water Mount Estate,
"the one parcel containing 25 acres."
So there's obviously been some kind of...
..transferring of land. Mm-hm.
So it's a legal exchange... OK. ..that is made in 1840.
So in November 1840.
So two years after the end of slavery
and the land at Water Mount which is being transferred
had belonged to James Williams.
Yeah. Who's... Who's the owner.
And it's being purchased...
By George Thomas White. Right.
Obviously my four time great-grandfather. Right.
But how does that happen?
I have so many questions.
Like, how... OK.
Firstly, what happened to the estate?
You know, did it just completely shut down?
So in post-emancipation Jamaica, a lot of estates got into trouble,
and obviously that was the case with Water Mount.
They subdivided at least a part of the estate into parcels
and they sold it to whomever would purchase.
And one of the persons who had the interest
and the capacity to purchase was your four times great-grandfather...
George. ..George Thomas White.
But how did he afford to buy this land?
He had skills and a set of circumstances
that put him at an advantage compared to, for instance,
many of the field labourers.
So he would have had potential to perhaps earn slightly more money...
Right. ..through what he could do on the estate.
I mean, what an absolute change.
Like massive, drastic change of circumstances.
I mean, he didn't even have basic rights, really.
He didn't have, you know, control over his life
and, you know, how he worked and what he did,
to then, you know, come to owning land
and been really in control of his future
and his destiny is huge.
And if you asked him at the end of it what was important,
I bet that he wouldn't have said slavery
was the most important thing. Yeah.
You know, my family are so proud of the land that they have.
You know, they're always...
"We've got this land and it's been passed down."
And, you know, such a sense of pride.
And that all comes from George Thomas White.
To finish her journey, Jess is taking her dad Vinnie
to visit the plot that her ancestor George Thomas White
bought after being freed from slavery.
Hi. Hi, I'm Jess. I'm Julius White.
Nice to meet you, Julius. Nice to meet you.
Are you from the White family? I'm from the white family.
Oh, nice to meet you. This is my dad. Yes. Hello, Julius.
Nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you. All right.
Is this all your land? This is the land.
So if you'd like to take a look and whatever, just come along.
Yeah, we'd love to. Just show us the way.
OK. No problem.
Julius White is also a direct descendant of George Thomas White,
so the land is still in the family.
It was passed down through the generations
from what would be my great-grandfather.
OK. Yeah.
Coming down to my grandfather. Coming down to my father.
And then it came down to us. To you. Yeah.
So, George Thomas White would be what to you, guys?
My fourth time great-grandfather. So
great-great-great-great-grandfather. Great-grandfather. Yeah.
You see where we're coming from with this? Yeah, yeah.
So we are just one family. One family. Yeah.
It's so amazing to be here,
standing in land that goes so far back in our family...
Yeah. ..and meet a long-lost relative.
Yeah. You know... It's just... It's just incredible.
Yeah. Me too, guys.
I didn't imagine that I would be stood here
at the beginning of this whole journey.
It's incredible to think...
..what, you know, my fourth time great-grandfather
George Thomas White
went through in his life, but he never gave up.
I definitely wanted to find out more about, you know,
did that kind of grit and determination that I had
throughout my kind of career within sport,
did that come from anywhere?
And I've seen that massively demonstrated
and what he went through.
I think that displays the most resilience
and determination I've ever seen.
And if I got an ounce of that from him, then, I mean,
that's, you know, an amazing thing to have.
I think both my great-great-grandmother Maud
and also George Thomas White, you know,
they both hadn't got an identity, essentially.
You know, Maud was a number.
She was a patient on a ward and she didn't have a voice to speak.
And also George Thomas White,
he belonged to an establishment, to a place.
You know, they are tough circumstances
to navigate yourself through.
And, yeah, it's been an incredible journey
to uncover more about those two individuals.
I think the overriding feeling that I've come away with is pride.
It's made me view our family and where we come from
in a completely different light.
And I get to share all these findings and memories
and experiences with the rest of my family back home.
And that's really, really special.