Paramaribo & Nickerie District, Suriname
Working Research Document — March 2026
This document records what has been uncovered so far about the Lashley family of Suriname—a maternal line connected to the Strehlke tree through marriage. The research draws on Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, Geni.com, the Dutch Open Archives, the Suriname national census records, the historical research blog Buku—Bibliotheca Surinamica, the suriname.nu database, Dutch resistance archives, and web research conducted in March 2026.
The family descends from George Francis P. Lashley, who emigrated from Barbados to Dutch Suriname in the mid-nineteenth century, and traces through eleven children born in the Nickerie district at the turn of the twentieth century. Among those children was the dentist George Francis Lashley (Jr.), through whom this branch connects to us.
The Lashley family’s deepest known roots trace to West Africa—the exact region is unknown, but it was one of the areas from which the English acquired enslaved people for their Caribbean colonies. An ancestor was transported to Barbados and forced to work on sugar cane plantations.
The surname “Lashley” is English in origin. It derives from the place name Latchly in Devon, England, and first appeared as a surname in the late seventeenth century, spelled “Lashleigh.” The earliest documented Lashley in Barbados was Andrew Lashley, who may have arrived in the late 1650s and married Mary Church on 7 September 1662 at Christ Church parish. By 1715, multiple Lashley plantations existed in St. Philip’s parish, and the name was established on the island. The Lashley surname was likely adopted by or assigned to formerly enslaved people from these plantations—a standard naming pattern across the British Caribbean after emancipation in 1834.
In the context of the Surinamese Lashleys, the surname entered the colony through George Francis P. Lashley, who crossed from Barbados (possibly via British Guiana) into the Dutch-controlled Nickerie district of Suriname in the mid-1800s. The Nickerie district, on Suriname’s western border with British Guiana, was a natural crossing point—the two colonies shared a porous frontier along the Corantijn River, and free Black labourers and tradespeople regularly moved between them.
George Francis P. Lashley (born c. 1832, Barbados) is the earliest confirmed ancestor of the Surinamese Lashley line. He emigrated to Suriname and settled in the Nickerie District. His parentage and exact origins in Barbados remain untraced.
He partnered with Alexandrina Leetz (born c. 1834, Plantage Good Intent, Nickerie District; died c. 1911 or 1923—sources differ). Alexandrina was born enslaved, recorded only under the single name “Alexandrina” on Plantage Good Intent. By 1862, she was working on Anthony Dessé’s plantation called Paradise, where she was manumitted (freed) under the surname Leetz, together with her daughter Jessie (born c. 1860). This was one year before the general abolition of slavery in Suriname (1 July 1863).
A note on the surname: Some historical sources (notably the suriname.nu database and the Buku article by Carl Haarnack) describe Alexandrina as having a relationship with “an O’Neill” from Barbados, rather than naming George Francis P. Lashley directly. This likely reflects the fact that the father went by a compound name—something like George Francis O’Neil Lashley—and the “O’Neil” element was sometimes recorded as the primary identifier. The full registered name of their son, Francis O’Neil Nicolaas Lashley, preserves both name elements. The family name variants Leetz, Leetch, Leach, and Lashley all appear in different records for this family and are confirmed as referring to the same line.
Born 20 March 1872 at Plantage Paradise, Nickerie, Suriname. Died 1 May 1940 in Nieuw Nickerie.
At birth he was registered under the surname Leetz (his mother’s manumission name), going by Francis Leetz in early life. He grew up on Plantage Paradise, the cotton and sugar plantation owned by Anthony Dessé. Only later did he adopt the surname Lashley—the name of his father, who had come from Barbados. This was a common practice in post-emancipation Suriname, where patronymic adoption of European or English surnames was frequent.
Francis built a successful career as a balata trader. Balata is a rubber-like latex tapped from the Manilkara bidentata tree—a major export commodity in late nineteenth-century Suriname, used for drive belts, conveyor belts, and most importantly as insulation for undersea telegraph cables. By 1899, he held concessions in the balata industry in Nieuw Nickerie, participating in the Balata Co. Suriname. At the industry’s peak around 1910, some 2,600 balata bleeders were working in the Nickerie district alone. Francis accumulated considerable wealth, but lost his fortune through unforeseen circumstances. In 1929, a boat carrying 3,000 kilos of his balata sank.
He married Gerredina Johanna Cornelia Samuels (born 19 March 1876, Hazard, Oostelijke Polders, Nickerie; died 26 February 1933, Paramaribo) on 18 February 1902 in Suriname. Together they had eleven children.
The Lashley family is so prominent in the Nickerie district that a street in Nieuw Nickerie—Lashleystraat—is named after them.
Francis and Gerredina had eleven children, confirmed by the Buku article about their daughter Emma (“the eighth of eleven children in total”). Records across MyHeritage, Ancestry, Geni, and the Dutch Open Archives allow us to name the following. Birth order is approximate. Click a tile to read more.
Born c. 1900, Nickerie / Suriname. Died 1978. He is believed to be the dentist whose practice was destroyed alongside Hotel Lashley and Emma’s pharmacy in a 1975 fire in Paramaribo. Married Beulah Bush (married 1922 in Maryland, USA—suggesting early emigration to the United States). He had at least two children. This is the line through which the family connects to us.
▶ OPEN QUESTION: The 1922 marriage in Maryland suggests George emigrated to the US while young. But the 1975 fire destroyed “a Dr. Lashley’s dental practice” in Paramaribo. Did George return to Suriname? Or was the dentist a different family member? This needs clarification with family.
Born 1 October 1901, Nickerie District, Suriname. Died 2 July 1989 (or 22 July 1988 per some records), Miami, Florida, USA. She married into the Batson family. Her emigration to the United States mirrors her brother George’s, and suggests a broader pattern of family members leaving Suriname for the US in the early twentieth century.
Born 24 March 1903, Nieuw Nickerie, Suriname. Died 1 August 1980, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Leo is the most celebrated member of the Lashley family. He emigrated to the Netherlands to study medicine at Utrecht University and earned his doctorate in ophthalmology in 1930. He married Helen van der Drift, settled in Rotterdam, and became chairman of the Rotterdam Doctors’ Association.
When the Second World War began, Leo became a towering figure in the Dutch resistance. He led the doctors’ resistance in Rotterdam, protested the establishment of the Nazi Doctors’ Chamber in 1942, sheltered a Scottish pilot whose plane was shot down, and drove repeatedly during the Hunger Winter to the Hoeksche Waard to fetch food for the starving. Prince Bernhard personally charged him with organising hunger hospitals and food transport.
Leo was a deeply religious man and an elder at the Breeplein Church in South Rotterdam—a church that secretly hid three Jewish families in its organ lofts. When one of the hidden Jewish women, Rebecca Kool, became pregnant, no other doctor would help her. Leo taught himself obstetrics from textbooks and successfully delivered her baby, Emile. He was arrested twice by the Germans but released both times because they needed his medical skills.
In 1931–32, Leo also performed as an actor, playing the lead role in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.
After the war, Leo experienced profound racism despite his heroism. A classified Dutch security service (BVD) report noted that he had been pushed out of a prominent municipal government role because he was a “coloured person,” which deeply grieved him. Disillusioned, he left the Netherlands for Curaçao in 1948, where he practiced as a government ophthalmologist. He returned to the Netherlands in 1977, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, and died in Amsterdam.
Today, a street in Rotterdam near the former Zuiderziekenhuis is named after him. His colleague Dr. Lou Lichtveld (the writer Albert Helman) eulogised him as “a man of blameless integrity.”
Married into the Ensberg family. Recorded across multiple sibling lists on MyHeritage and Geni. Further details not yet traced.
Born c. 1905, Suriname. Died c. 1915, at approximately age 10. Named after her paternal grandmother, Alexandrina Leetz. Her early death is a poignant reminder of the fragility of life in early twentieth-century Suriname.
Named in multiple sibling lists. A 1947 Surinamese newspaper mention from the Delpher archive notes “Cecilia Lashley” in a Paramaribo context. Further details not yet traced.
Born 10 July 1908, Nickerie District, Suriname. Died 6 June 1992, Paramaribo, Suriname. He lived to age 83 and appears to have remained in Paramaribo for the duration of his life. He has the most detailed Geni records among the less-documented siblings.
Born 12 September 1909, Nickerie District, Suriname. Died 25 September 1993, Paramaribo, Suriname. She married a man named Groeiliker and had a daughter, Sila.
Emma was described as exceptionally gifted—“what we would now call highly gifted.” She attended the Emmaschool and then the Hendrikschool. Around 1935, she established herself as a pharmacist in Paramaribo and became the most celebrated pharmacist in twentieth-century Suriname. She operated pharmacies on the Noorderkerkstraat and Watermolenstraat in Paramaribo, taught chemistry and physics at the Hendrikschool, served as chairwoman of the Association of Pharmacists, and advised the Staten van Suriname (Parliament) on pharmaceutical matters.
In 1975, a fire simultaneously destroyed Hotel Lashley, the dental practice of a Dr. Lashley, and Emma’s pharmacy. She subsequently worked at the St. Vincentiusziekenhuis in Paramaribo and served on its board.
Emma also published important historical research on the history of pharmacy in Suriname, documenting in Pharmaceutisch Weekblad (nos. 46–47, 1940) that the colony’s first pharmacists had arrived in 1678 with Governor Johannes Heinsius. She was deeply involved in charitable work, including SOS Children’s Villages, and regularly visited elderly residents at Lantigron and in care homes.
Born 14 October 1910, Nieuw Nickerie, Suriname. Died 9 December 1991, Paramaribo, Suriname. She married Johannes Verwonderd Polanen. Her 1921 census registration places her in Paramaribo, District III—indicating the family had already begun its migration from Nickerie to the capital.
Born 26 February 1912, Nickerie District, Suriname. Died 8 December 1983, Paramaribo, Suriname. She married Peter Schüngel. Her 1921 census registration is in Nickerie District, Kring II, Hernhutterstraat. Some census records render her initials as “Th.M.H.” and her first name as “Theolya”—Geni and MyHeritage sources consistently use Thelma Marianne Stella, which appears to be the more complete and accurate form.
Born 7 December 1913. Named after his father. Not to be confused with Francis O’Neil Lashley (1935–2013), who was the son of Leo’s brother Leonardus and Adriana Hendrica Helena Van Der Drift—i.e. a nephew in the next generation, also given the patriarch’s name.
The records reveal a clear generational migration pattern. Francis O’Neil and the eldest children were born in the Nickerie District (Plantage Paradise / Nieuw Nickerie). By the 1920s, several family members had moved to Paramaribo—the capital—where their 1921 census registrations place them.
Some of the next generation emigrated further: George Francis Jr. to the United States (Maryland / Washington D.C. area), and Louise Helena to Miami. Leo went to the Netherlands and later Curaçao. John Cyril Maximiliaan, Emma, Alice, and Thelma appear to have remained in Paramaribo for the rest of their lives.
The 1921 Suriname Census (held at the National Archives of the Netherlands, accessible via openarchieven.nl) contains the following confirmed Lashley registrations:
1921 Census:
F. Lashley, b. 1872 — Nickerie, Kring II (Francis O’Neil)
M. Lashley, b. 1885 — Nickerie, Kring II (sibling of Francis? or another branch)
A.B.C. Lashley, b. 1910 — Paramaribo, Kring III (Alice Beatrice Carolina)
Th.M.H. Lashley, b. 1912 — Nickerie, Kring II, Hernhutterstraat (Thelma)
W.Th. Lashley, b. 1885 — Cottica (separate branch)
J.G. Lashley, b. 1891 — Paramaribo, Kring XII
1950 Census:
Emma Clementina Lashley — parents: Francis Ontel [O’Neil] Lashley & Johanna Gerhardina Cornelia Samuel
Willem Douglas Lashley — son of Joseph Henry Lashley & Josephina Bernstijn (cousin line?)
Helene Josefine Lashley — daughter of James Nathaniel Lashley & Augusta Josefine Comvalius (another branch)
The 1950 census entries for Willem Douglas Lashley and Helene Josefine Lashley suggest additional Lashley branches in Suriname, possibly representing other children of George Francis P. Lashley, or a parallel Lashley migration from Barbados. These lines have not yet been connected to the main trunk.
1. George Francis and the dental practice. The 1975 fire in Paramaribo destroyed Hotel Lashley, a Dr. Lashley’s dental practice, and Emma’s pharmacy simultaneously. George Francis Jr. is recorded as having married in Maryland in 1922, suggesting early emigration to the United States, yet some sources associate him with the Paramaribo dental practice. Did George return to Suriname after living in the US? Or was the dentist a different Dr. Lashley—perhaps one of his children or another sibling? This needs to be confirmed with your mother-in-law.
2. Origins of George Francis P. Lashley in Barbados. His parentage and the route by which he arrived in Nickerie (before or after the 1863 abolition of slavery in Suriname) are not yet traced. This would require research in Barbadian parish records (particularly St. Philip’s and Christ Church), Surinamese notarial records, or the plantation registers held at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague.
3. Alexandrina Leetz’s death date. Sources give either c. 1911 or 1923. If 1923, she would have been approximately 89 years old—not impossible, but unusual for the era. No death certificate has been located.
4. The “O’Neill” question. Was the father (George Francis P. Lashley) also known as O’Neill? Or is the O’Neill in Francis’s name a maternal or middle-name element from a different source? The suriname.nu article describes the father as “an O’Neill,” while MyHeritage family trees compiled by descendants consistently use “George Francis P. Lashley.” The most likely resolution is a compound name.
5. The other Lashley branches. The 1950 census records mention Joseph Henry Lashley (father of Willem Douglas) and James Nathaniel Lashley (father of Helene Josefine). Are these siblings of Francis O’Neil? Other children of George Francis P. Lashley? Or a separate Barbadian Lashley migration? Tracing these lines could widen the family tree considerably.
6. The FamilySearch document. FamilySearch holds a 37-page document titled “The Lashley Family History” by Theodore Lashley (b. 1877). His connection to the Surinamese branch is not clear but would be worth investigating.
Nationaal Archief, The Hague — Holds Suriname colonial registers, plantation records, and emancipation-era manumission documents, including the Surinamese Slave Registers (1830–1863).
National Archives of Suriname, Paramaribo — Civil registration records (births, marriages, deaths).
Delpher.nl — Digitised Dutch-language Surinamese newspapers (De Ware Tijd, Het Nieuws) containing multiple Lashley mentions.
FamilySearch Library — Holds the 37-page Lashley Family History by Theodore Lashley (b. 1877).
Barbados Department of Archives — Parish records for St. Philip’s and Christ Church, where the earliest Barbadian Lashleys are documented.