Henry and Ida had two children together, but chose not to marry.

And while we don't know anything about the nature of their relationship, we do know that it didn't last long because records show that in 1928, Henry married a woman named Leticia Beckford.

So this is, this is my grandfather?

Yes.

Finally marrying somebody else?

Someone else, yeah.

That's your grandfather Henry, getting married to someone other than your grandmother, Ida, Other than the woman he's had these kids with.

Yeah, and your mom was 14 years old at the time when her father married another woman.

I don't know what the... I didn't know this, but it all makes sense.

And oh man.

It's not the specifics of my grandfather marrying another woman.

Not the specifics of that, per se, but it's consistent with some things that my aunt told me about certain things that had happened that impacted them as children.

And that some of these things that happened when they were children had impacted my mother very negatively, harshly.

Now, I don't know if it's this, per se, but it's just consistent with an impression that one has, an impression that one has that gradually becomes less impressionistic and more specific.

It's as if figures are emerging through a fog.

We now began to follow the roots of Delroy's grandmother Ida, tracking back to her grandparents, Delroy's great-great grandparents, a couple named James Laing and Margaret Campbell.

We believe they both were born in Jamaica in the early 1800s when the island was one of great Britain's richest colonies with an economy powered by slavery.

Searching for traces of their lives, we uncovered a registry of Jamaica's enslaved population from the year 1826.

It lists the names of thousands of enslaved people, including several hundred owned by a sugar planter who shared the surname of Delroy's ancestors, Laing.

And one of these names stood out, "Margaret Campbell, color, Negro, age two, African or Creole, Creole."

So we have gone back into the bowels of slavery and found your ancestor by name and found the name of the white man who owned-- Owned her.

Yeah.

And that's where the Laing name came from.

That's right, you got it.

She was held at the Goshen Estate.

We've marked its location right there.

Goshen.

Have you been anywhere near there?

Nope.

You gonna go there now?

Absolutely.

Because you got roots there.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Margaret was likely born on this estate in the early 1820s, and as we combed through the estates archives, we made a precious discovery.

Margaret's mother, a woman named Louisa Thomas, is listed by name on multiple documents.

Louisa is Delroy's third great-grandmother.

She was born in the year 1797, meaning that Delroy's maternal roots can be traced back to the 18th century in a continuous paper trail.

What's it been like for you to learn about your mother's family in so much depth?

It's been elevating.

It's been elevating.