Investigating your South Asian ancestors' family history can take considerable time and effort. This article provides invaluable tips and local contacts for achieving the best results from your research.
Tracing your Asian roots on the Indian subcontinent
By Abi Husainy
Last updated 2011-02-17
On this page
- Migration into South Asia
- Records in the native countries
- India
- Useful addresses in India
- Bangladesh
- Pakistan
- Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon)
- Obstacles to accessing information
- Conclusion
- Find out more
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Migration into South Asia
Due to lack of border control in the old days, people migrated to Asian countries without any restrictions to spread religion, trade with merchants, explore and conquer. These include:
- Siddis, are an ethnic group who migrated to India from Abyssinia. The descendents of this community live in Gujarat and Maharashtra and in the Hyderabad area
- During the Muslim dynasty period, many Persian and Arab scholars, physicians and poets came to serve in India
- Parsees (Iranians), due to religious prosecution in Persia, migrated to India
- In 68AD Jews from Europe and Baghdad settled in the Malabar, Mumbai (Bombay) and Kolcutta (Calcutta) regions of India
Finding family history information for the descendents of these groups can be challenging as many of the records created by the Mughals and others have been destroyed during different battles between locals and the British.
Here oral family history plays an important role, as normally one can trace only a few generations of history within India and Pakistan.
Surnames play an important role because they can be linked to specific regions, clans or tribes. For example, take the name Syed Abdul Rahaman Qadiri Chisti Arabie, Dimasq. The last four words of this name are a suffix that denotes a follower of the Chisti Sufi Order who came from Damascus, Arabia.
Records in the native countries
To effectively search the records available at the country of your ancestors’ origin, it is necessary to define more precisely where your family or ancestors came from.
East and West Pakistan state were not created until August 1947. You should consider asking the following questions:
- If your ancestors were born in the old Indian territories which are now in Pakistan, do you know which states they came from?
- Were they born in East Pakistan (which became Bangladesh in1972)?
- Did they opt to migrate to Pakistan from India during partition?
- Did they migrate from East Pakistan to West Pakistan for employment and then proceed to Britain?
- Have they chosen to migrate directly to England or first from India to Pakistan then to this country?
- Were they indentured labourers from Tamil Nadu (previously Madras Presidency, later Madras State) who migrated for work under British Rule to Sri Lanka (Ceylon)?
India
Before The National Archives were set up in India, there was a system of keeping manuscript records which were created by Hindu rulers, sultans, Mughal and other Muslim rulers.
Records may be available in the form of palm leaf, bark, parchment, silk, leather and cloth manuscripts. Records created by the Indian local rulers, Hindu temples, Islamic shrines, gurdwaras, and waqf authorities (the Charitable Islamic Trust) may be kept at the local state libraries, museums and relevant State Archives.
These documents can give a certain degree of family history information on elite families and higher-ranking officials who served the local rulers.
In 1891 (during the British period), the National Archives of India was established as the Imperial Record Department in Calcutta. Since 1947, the National Archives of India has established four regional offices at Bhopal, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar and Pandicherry. Their contact details are as follows:
- Record Centre, Janpath
- National Archives of India
- Janpath
- New Delhi-110001, India
- Tel No: 00 91 23383436
- Fax No: 00 91 3384127
- Email: archives@.nic.in
- Regional Office of Bhopal
- National Archives of India
- Civil Lines (near Hamidia College)
- Bhopal – 462001, India
- Tel: 0755 2660173
- Fax: 0755 2660117
- Record Centre, Jaipur
- National Archives of India
- 10-A, Jhalana Institutional Area
- Jhalana Doongr
- Jaipur - 302 004, India
- Tel: 0141 2707499
- Fax: 0141 2701815
- Record Centre, Bhubaneswar
- National Archives of India
- 1078/3355
- Shatabdi Nagar
- P.O. Baramunda Colony Unit-8
- Bhubaneswar - 751 003, India
- Fax: 674 2471327
- Record Centre, Pondicherry
- National Archives of India
- Jeevanandapuram Lawspet
- Pondicherry - 605 008, India
- Fax: 0413 2253104
- Passport records
- Passport records are kept at the Regional Passport Office of the each State in India.
- Births and deaths
- Births and deaths in India are normally registered with the local Municipality Office, and the registers passed to the District Registrar's Office.
- Deaths are only registered when there is a legal case, if the deceased has left land or had a bank account, if there is a pension to be claimed, or if the death occurred by accident or murder, etc.
- Wealthy families normally announce deaths in the national and local newspapers. The Hindu, the national and regional newspaper, has an obituary column. It started in 1878 as a weekly, becoming a daily in 1889.
- Wills
- Wills are normally kept with the family of the person concerned, but some may also be found at the local Register Office.
- Marriage records
- Marriage records of Goans and Anglo-Indians are held at the various churches. Muslim marriages (Nikka Nama) are normally recorded in the local mosque registers, but not all the records have survived or have been actively conserved.
- If the marriage was conducted legally in the Register Office, the relevant records are held at the local Marriage Registration Office. Some temples in India keep Hindu marriage registers, but they are not complete records. Wealthy families announced marriages in the local or national newspapers, such as The Hindu (as above).
- Hindu pilgrimage and marriage records
- The Genealogical Society (GSU) of Utah, USA has microfilmed Hindu pilgrimage records for Haridwar and several other Hindu pilgrimage centres. Priests (pandits) located at each site would record the name, date, home-town and purpose of visit for each pilgrim. These records were grouped according to family and ancestral home. The holdings by GSU include Haridwar, Kurukshetra, Pehowa, Chintpurni, Jawalapur and Jawalamukhi.
- In addition, GSU has microfilmed Maithil Brahmin genealogical records to establish degrees of relationship between prospective brides and grooms in order to determine whether the marriage is prohibited. There are Islamic marriage records for Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), Qazi-Muslim marriage records (1881-1982) and Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh) and Qazi-Muslim marriage records (1921-1955).
- Microfilm copies of these records have been deposited at the National Archives of India for scholarly access.
- The GSU has a large holding of Christian church records from India and surrounding areas. Most of these are parish registers, which mainly include baptism, marriage and burial records, and occasionally confirmations, donations, church censuses, etc.
- Microfilm copies of these records have been donated to the administrative offices of the churches. It includes Roman Catholic Church records from Goa and Pondicherry, civil registration records from Pondicherry, and records of Indians in Fiji and in South Africa.
- Access to GSU records
- A microfiche copy of its India catalogue may be obtained by writing to:
- Genealogical Society of Utah
- 50 East North Temple
- Salt Lake City, Utah 84150, USA
- http://www.lds.org.uk/
- Pre-1947 census records
- Pre-1947 census records are available at the National Archives of India for the period 1871-1923. The General Reports on the Census of India for 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 contain data relating to geography, politics, population, occupations, ethnography, language, race, caste, tribe, literacy, infirmities and, sex and age distribution. These reports can be viewed at http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/dcd/default.htm, although data on individual names is not available on this website.
- Post-1947 census records
- The Central and State Census Records from 1947 to the present are held at:
- The Central Secretariat Library (CSL)
- Indian Official Document Collection
- G, Wing, Shastri Bhavan
- New Delhi, 110001
- INDIA
- Indian armed forces
- Indian armed forces personnel records are held at the National Archives of India:
- Email: mailto:archives@nic.in
- Passenger lists
- The outgoing passengers lists may be available in the Office of the Port Trust in India where the passengers were boarded.
- The Marine Department files created during the era of the East India Company are held at the West Bengal, Maharashtra (Mumbai) and Tamil Nadu (Madras) state archives - they may also give out this type of information.
Useful addresses in India
- North India
- Punjab State Archives
- Puralekh Bhavan
- Plot No.3, Sector-38
- Chandigarh, India
- Gujarat State Archives,
- State Archives Building
- Sector-17, Opposite Rose Garden and New Sachivalaya Complex
- Gandhi Nagar-382017
- Gujarat, India
- Haryana Regional Archives
- Hisar
- Haryana, India
- South India
- Tamil Nadu State Archives
- 28/29 Gandhi-Irwin Road
- Egmore, Chennai - 600 008
- Tamil Nadu
- Tel: 0091 44 825 43 38
- Fax: 0091 44 825 60 47
- http://www.tanap.net/content/archives/
- Salar Jang Museum and Library
- Hyderabad, 50002,
- India
- Andhra Pradesh State Archives
- Tarnaka, Hyderabad, 500007
- India
- East India
- West Bengal State Archives
- 6 Bhowani Dutta Lane
- Calcutta -700 007
- India
- Tel: 0091 33 224 13988
- The Asiatic Society Library
- 1 Park Street
- Calcutta – 700016
- West Bengal, India
- Uttar Pradesh State Regional Archives Library
- 53 Mahatma Gandhi Road
- Allahabad - 211011
- India
- Central India
- Vidarbha Archives
- Department of Archives
- Government of Maharashtra
- 349/2 Gandhi Bhavan Building
- Bajaj-Abhyankar Nagar
- Nagpur - 440 010
- India
- Tel: 0091 712 23 4384
- Fax no: 0091-712-23 4384
- West India
- Mumbai Archives
- Department of Archives
- Government of Maharashtra
- 156 Elphinstone College Building
- M.G. Road, Fort,
- Mumbai – 400032
- India
- Tel: 0091 22 2843971, 0091 22 2844268
- Fax: 0091 22 2844268
- Kolhapur Archives
- Department of Archives
- Government of Maharashtra
- Hujur Record Building (opposite Town Hall)
- Kolhapur - 416 002
- India
- Tel: 0091 231 64 43 94
- Fax: 0091 231 64 43 94
- Pune Archives
- Department of Archives
- Government of Maharashtra (opposite Council Hall)
- Pune - 411 001
- India
- Tel: 0091 20 612 73 07
- Fax: 0091 20 612 73 07
- Marathwada Archives
- Department of Archives
- Government of Maharashtra
- N-8A, CIDCO Corner, CIDCO
- Aurangabad - 439 003
- India
- Tel: 0091 240 48 2193
Bangladesh
- Births, deaths and marriages
- Registering births, marriage and deaths is not mandatory in Bangladesh. In rural areas, some did not register at all. Records of births, marriages and deaths may be held at the City Council or Municipal Corporation of each town.
- Issues with archives in Bangladesh
- During partition in 1947, there was a successful attempt to divide archival material equally between East and West Bengal. In 1971, similar attempts were made to claim material from the Pakistan authorities relevant to East Bengal (East Pakistan). However, not all the records were transferred to Bangladesh.
- National Archives of Bangladesh
- The National Archives of Bangladesh holds the following:
- District records
- Proceedings
- Secretariat records
- Dhaka Divisional Commissioner’s Office records
- Old newspapers
- Government gazettes
- Press cuttings
- Old maps
- Gazettes
- Printed correspondence files from Calcutta, which were transferred in 1947
- However, these records are not complete. For further advice on family history research in Bangladesh, please contact the National Archives of Bangladesh
- Bangladesh National Library and Archives
- 32 Justice Sayed Mahbub Murshed Sarani
- Sher-e-Bangla Nagar (Agargaon)
- Dhaka 1207
- Bangladesh
- Tel: 0088-02-91999
- Fax: 0088-02-9118704
- E-mail: nabdirector@gmail.com
Pakistan
- Birth records
- In most of Pakistan, the reporting of births is not mandatory. Rural zones can be quite difficult when it comes to finding any records.
- Elsewhere there have been some major losses of records, most notably in 1948 when fires engulfed the vast majority of collections on vital statistics held by the municipality of Karachi.
- The Registrar of Births and Deaths or the Director of Health Statistics in a municipality are the most likely sources for many types of birth records if they exist.
- In the rural zones, please consult the Union Council, District Council or District Health Officer. The reality is that many births are registered relatively late in childhood.
- For many Pakistanis, the principal or headmaster provides school or matriculation certificates, which also confirm the date of birth and the father of the pupil. It is therefore worth consulting the school records.
- One of the trickier aspects of searches for Pakistani names is the variety of combinations and spellings. Some individuals change their names through announcements in the newspaper.
- In the case of very old citizens and rural dwellers, it is common to find only the year of birth, with no day or month.
- Death Records
- The Registrar of Births and Deaths in a municipality or Union Council is a likely source for the recording of deaths.
- Cantonment boards in cities can also issue death certificates. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that the registration of deaths is not carried out with dutiful consistency in many zones. Searches may meet with frustration and failure.
- Marriage records
- Muslims need to register their marriages with the Nikah Registrar, who receives an appointment from the municipality, Panchayat Committee, and Cantonment Board or Union Council.
- The marriage certificate known as the Nikah Nama is written in the Urdu language, though a translation authenticated for accuracy may accompany the document.
- For non-Muslims, including Christians, Hindus, and Parsis, it is usually the case that church or temple leaders must register the marriage with local authorities.
- If non-Muslims desire to make their marriage part of the civil record, they can later have certificates prepared that are witnessed by magistrates, a procedure in accordance with the Christian Marriage Act of 1892.
- Divorce records
- With the exception of Azad Kashmir, all zones of Pakistan make divorce subject to forms of arbitration.
- In Azad Kashmir, the ‘bare talaq’ - a form of divorce in which a husband can sever a relationship with a triple declaration of the phrase ‘I divorce thee’ - still has practitioners. The oral quality of the ‘bare talaq’ decree may make a paper trail more difficult to find.
- Civil courts can grant Christians a divorce in Pakistan, and copies of a specific case ruling can be obtained from the court.
- Ex-servicemen of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF)
- Many ex-servicemen and officers of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) moved to England in the 1950s and found good jobs with the commercial airlines at Heathrow Airport.
- Some of them served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Indian Air Force in India and opted to go to Pakistan after partition. Their service records were transferred to the Pakistan Air Force, and copies were also kept at the National Archives of India.
- Identity Card
- In the 1970s, Pakistan began issuing identity cards to citizens at age 18. These are required in order to vote or to obtain a driver's license and passport. In rural areas, it is common for identity cards to be issued to women without photographs.
- For further advice on family history research in Pakistan, contact the National Archives of Pakistan:
- National Archives of Pakistan
- Administrative Block
- Area Block N
- Pakistan Secretariat
- Islamabad
- Pakistan
- Tel 0092 51 9202044
- Fax 0092 51 9206349
- To contact others researching their ancestry in Pakistan:
- http://genforum.genealogy.com/pakistan/
- The Record Office of the province of Sindh based at Karachi holds private collections, maps and material relating to the pre-partition period.
- There are also Record Offices of the province of Punjab, North West Frontier, Baluchistan and various district record offices.
- These institutions may hold local government records from which family history information could be found.
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon)
Over thousands of years, South Indians have been migrating to Sri Lanka.
The British took labourers from Madras Presidency in South India to Ceylon in order to work on the tea and rubber plantations. It is worth checking locally for plantation records.
After the independence of Ceylon in 1948, the Tamil minorities lost their rights to vote and to use Tamil as an official language, which had been promised to them.
As a result of Indian and Ceylonese citizenship legislation, many Tamils including estate labourers lost their citizenship, and became stateless.
In 1963 a group of Tamils petitioned to Queen Elizabeth II, claiming citizenship of the United Kingdom and the Colonies under the British Nationality Act 1948.
They asked the Queen to intervene on their behalf with the Ceylon Government. As a result, Tamils without Ceylonese citizenship, who were born in Ceylon and whose fathers were born in Ceylon, qualified for British citizenship.
The National Archives of the UK holds the original copy - under document reference DO 176/20 - of the the petition made to Queen Elizabeth II, presented by Tamil-speaking citizens resident in Ceylon, who claimed to be citizens of the UK and Colonies.
It gives 700 petitioners’ names, their occupation and address, place of birth in Ceylon, date of birth and supporting signatures.
Most of the petitioners are from estates in Hatton, Kotagala, Dickoya, Hakgranoya, Bogawantala, Talawakelle, Maskeliya, as well as others.
- A Sri Lankan genealogical forum is available through the genealogy.com website where you can post and share family history information. The website address is:
- http://genforum.genealogy.com/srilanka/
- An excellent Sri Lankan genealogy website which gives information on Sinhalese, Tamil, Moor, Malay, Memon, Dawoodi, Bohra, Burgher, Colombo Chetty and Parsi Families is:
- http://www.rootsweb.com/%7Elkawgw/index2.html
- Useful genealogy databases, especially for the Sri Lankan Tamil community, are:
- http://ceylontamils.com/home.php
- http://www.rootsweb.com/
- The National Archives of Sri Lanka holds:
- Land settlement records (1867-1900)
- Genealogical records (18th century)
- Birth details on palm leaves (1806-1812)
- Voters registers (1965-1992)
- Sinhala newspapers (1862-1976)
- English newspapers (1832-1976)
- Tamil newspapers (1864-1976)
- These are all invaluable sources for family historians. Their contact details are:
- National Archives of Sri Lanka
- P.O. Box 1414
- 7 Reid Avenue
- Colombo 7
- Sri Lanka
- Email:narchive@slt.lk
- Tel: 0094 1 694523, 94 1 696917
- Fax: 0094 1 694419
The information about census records of Sri Lanka can be obtained from the:
- Information Unit
- Department of Census & Statistics
- P.O.Box 563, Colombo
- Sri Lanka
- Tel: 0094 1 675297
- Email: dcensus@lanka.ccom.lk
Obstacles to accessing information
- Some family members will refuse to share information while others, especially the older generation, love to talk extensively on the topic
- Looking for information in the archives of South Asian nations can sometimes be very time consuming without any guarantee of success
- When you write to these archives, you may not get a prompt response
- When you visit them in person, some archives are very helpful
- However, due to the lack of resources and less emphasis on family history information, many archivists may not come forward to help. Vigorous persuasion may be necessary
- Indian manuscript libraries are difficult to access for family history information especially if you are not a scholar
- When you are in the archives or libraries expect to encounter problems such as the availability of the documents and even the possibility of electricity failure
- There may be limited research guides, catalogues and other aids to finding information
Conclusion
Momentum is building among South Asian communities to develop richer knowledge of family history and cultural heritage.
Modern media is helping to spread know-how about genealogical research as reflected in the expansion of websites and television programmes exploring the family heritage of South Asians.
Native Britons have long built up an array of institutions to uncover family history, as well as to respond to the needs of the European diaspora in North America, Oceania, and elsewhere.
South Asians are learning from these examples, but they will also have to discover distinctive paths to recovering the history of their communities.
The journey is young, but already many South Asians are better able to understand how their families became part of the migration waves transforming communities, cultures and cuisines in the Britain of our time.
Find out more
Links
Useful websites for family history, cultural events, festivals, arts, music and photographs in UK:
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Caribbean Studies and the History of Black and Asian Peoples in the UK
Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive
Record Office for Leicestershire
Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC) at The British Library
The India office family History database
Imperial War Museum, Photograph Archive
- Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service
- Sources for records relating to Ethnic Minority Groups, Young Indians Association and South Asian Christian Association
- http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/
- Birmingham City Archives
- Photographs; Asian peoples; Cultural events; Festivals; Sikhism
- Early References to Black and Asian Religious Groups in Birmingham
- Photographs by Ghazala Saddique (A Pakistani Celebration - Lokmela) and Photographs by Sukhvinder Singh Ubhi
- The Dyche Collection c.1920 – 1980
Family History
Programmes
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