Donna J. Robinson was born in Key West, Florida and is a fourth generation conch. She descends from both a line of Bahamians that immigrated to Key Vacas and worked as wreckers in the 1830s and Spaniards who immigrated from Pinar del Rio, Cuba in the early 1900s to became tobacco selectors in Key West's booming cigar industry. Her heritage is from Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, Harbour Island, Eleuthera, Gijon, Asturias, Spain and Cuba.Donna's maternal grandparents and other close family members were killed in the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane that devastated Matecumbe Key and are noted in several books written about the historical disaster. Donna has been researching the earliest families that settled the Florida Keys for over a decade.