A seminar on genealogy helped a National Museum staff member find a family link to a Bermudian sailor murdered in a UK race riot more than a century ago, it was revealed yesterday.

Lisa Howie, National Museum of Bermuda’s director of learning and engagement, said the Tracing Our Roots/Routes programme had turned up her close relation to the victim of a mob attack in the port city of Liverpool.

Ms Howie said: “This programme is very close to my heart.

“I have had a recent family history discovery thanks to an article in The Royal Gazette about Charles Wotten, a Bermudian seafarer who was murdered by a racist mob in Liverpool in 1919.

“Using the church records held in NMB’s collections, I confirmed that Charles is my great uncle.

“Further research led to learning about siblings of Charles that were previously unknown.

“Now, we are set up to find more family in Bermuda and in the US, and maybe in the UK.

Mr Wotten, who was 27, from Sandys, was killed the day after a group of Scandinavians attacked a West Indian man because he refused to give them a cigarette.

The man’s friends sought retaliation the next day and mass disturbances broke out.

Black people and their homes were attacked and Mr Wotten, who served in the Merchant Navy in the First World War, which suffered huge casualties, was targeted.

He was chased by a mob to the city’s Queen’s Dock and dived into the water to escape.

But he was pelted with stones by a mob estimated at up to 300 people and drowned. Police listed the death as a drowning and no one was charged.

Ms Howie told the public: “The records we have in Bermuda are astounding. Please join us for this event – you may make a discovery like mine.”

The event, Tracing Our Roots/Routes, will start at 5.30pm on Zoom.

A panel of local experts Jane Downing, the registrar for the National Museum of Bermuda, Ellen Hollis, the local studies librarian at the Bermuda National Library, and Mandellas Lightbourne, the archivist at the Bermuda Archives, will discuss how to find and use on-island documents to trace ancestors.

The panellists will discuss resources like birth, marriage and death registers, church records, records related to enslavement, wills, Parliamentary registers and newspaper archives.

The museum will also provide a free “toolkit” with resource listings and contact information to help participants.

The first event in the series was presented by Kenyatta Berry, an American genealogist, author, attorney and television host of PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow.

Ms Berry provided tips on how to interview living relatives, use genealogical techniques and access US immigration records and other sources for people who emigrated to America.

Elena Strong, the museum’s executive director, said: “Kenyatta chose to follow the story of a Bermudian man who moved to the US in the early 20th century and we were all pleasantly surprised to learn that a descendant of his was a participant in the webinar, causing Kenyatta to do what she calls her ’genealogy happy dance’.”

The first event was recorded and is available to watch at www.nmb.bm/tracing-our-roots.

Museum staff recommended people should watch Ms Berry’s presentation before they took part in tonight’s event.