Three hours of research before you land, a dossier when you leave.
Roots Plus: we search ahead, you arrive with a trail
Our regular roots day starts from zero at the archive. Roots Plus starts earlier: before you arrive we spend three hours searching the digitised registers for your names, so the day in Paramaribo begins where the trail ends rather than where it starts. Afterwards, everything goes home with you as a written dossier.
Honesty first, because that is what this product turns on: the most famous sources are free and online. The slave registers of 1830 to 1863, the index to the 1863 emancipation registers and the database of 34,000 Hindustani contract labourers are all digitally searchable. You do not need to pay us for those, and if you enjoy the hunt yourself we will happily point you at the right entrances.
What Roots Plus buys is time, experience and the ground itself. Before you arrive we spend roughly three hours on your names in those online sources: building the line, recording every document found, and framing the questions that can only be answered in Paramaribo. Because that is the second honesty: far from everything is digitised. Civil registry deeds are collected in person at the CBB only, civil registration after 1950 is not online, and the seventeen original emancipation registers sit physically in Suriname.
The day itself then follows the trail that already exists: targeted searching at the National Archives where the digital line stopped, and in the afternoon out to the place the research points at, a plantation in Commewijne or Para, a city neighbourhood, a cemetery.
Afterwards we write the dossier: the names and dates found, scans and photographs of every document, full source references, and an honest list of what we did not find plus the follow-up routes that exist. That is the difference from a day at the archive: you take home something your family can read.
What happens on the day
Nationaal Archief Suriname Plantage of wijk uit het onderzoek 5 stops
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Before
You send in the questionnaire; we do three hours of research in the digitised registers and send a short interim report.
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09:00
National Archives: targeted searching where the digital trail stopped.
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12:00
Lunch, and deciding together which place from the research we visit.
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13:00
Out to the plantation, neighbourhood or cemetery from your research.
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15:00
End of the day; the written dossier follows digitally within two weeks.
Times are indicative. Weather, traffic and how long you want to stay somewhere decide the rest.
Included
- Roughly three hours of research in the online registers before you arrive
- Everything in the regular roots day: archive guidance, transport, lunch
- A written dossier: names, scans, sources and follow-up routes
- An interim report before you leave the Netherlands
Not included
- Archive copying fees
- Multi-day interior trips (quoted separately)
- Tips
Bring
- Everything your family already knows: names, dates, districts, old papers
- Your passport for the archive
- The names from the lines "nobody remembers", especially those
This is for you if…
Anyone who wants the search done properly once, arriving with a trail instead of starting from zero. And anyone who wants a result they can pass on: the dossier is written to be read by your parents or your children.
Do not book this if…
Not for people who love the hunt themselves: the famous registers are free online and we will tell you exactly where. And no guaranteed outcome: some lines go dead, and the dossier will say so.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the €85 roots day and Roots Plus at €150?
Roots Plus adds roughly three hours of research in the digitised registers before you arrive, an interim report before departure, and a written dossier afterwards with every name, scan, source and follow-up route. The Paramaribo day itself is the same, but starts where the trail ends instead of at zero.
Could I not do that research myself?
Partly, and we say so plainly: the slave registers 1830-1863, the 1863 emancipation index and the database of 34,000 Hindustani contract labourers are free to search online. What is not online: CBB civil deeds (collected in person only), civil registration after 1950, and the seventeen original emancipation registers, which sit physically in Suriname. Dutch genealogists charge €49 per hour; our three hours plus the day plus the dossier come to €150 together.
What is in the dossier?
The reconstructed family line with names and dates, scans and photographs of every document found, full source references, and an honest list of what we did not find plus the follow-up routes that exist. It arrives digitally within 14 days of the day.
Is deeper research possible beyond Roots Plus?
Yes, by request. Multi-day research with several archive days, CBB deeds and visits to more than one plantation is assembled case by case; expect from roughly €300. We only build that after the prior research shows enough trail, because selling a thick package on a dead line is exactly what we do not do.
Other tours
- Roots & archives: finding your own family
The 1863 emancipation registers in the morning, the place itself after lunch.
€85 per person 6 hours
- Tailor-made: family and interior
For three generations at once, or a village on the Upper Suriname.
on request
- Corporate and delegation day programmes
For the team that flew in for work and has one day that is not work.
on request 8 hours
- Paramaribo Food Tour
Six kitchens inside three kilometres, from the fish hall to saoto in Blauwgrond.
€45 per person 4 hours
Ask someone who lives here
You arrange this directly with the guide, with no platform in between. A question about the timings, the meeting point or whether this tour suits the people coming: ask it before you commit to anything.
Ask the guideSwiti Tours started in 2026 and we do not invent reviews. The first guest who writes something about Roots Plus: with prior research and a dossier appears in this space: unedited, with a first name and the month.
Enquire about Roots Plus: with prior research and a dossier
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