Ancestors from the Indian subcontinent

This is a follow-on guide to Researching Immigrant Ancestry.

It relates specifically to sources that may help you discover more about your ancestors from the Indian subcontinent.

Hopefully, oral family history will have told you where your ancestors came from, and when and why they moved to Britain. It is useful to know why they came, because certain groups of people have particular records associated with them. These include:

• People to whom the British Colonies gave permission to live and work in Britain
• Those who came to Britain because they were employed by British people who had lived in the subcontinent, but returned home
• Those who came to Britain on business or for specific jobs such as diplomats, politicians, merchants, employees of the East India Company, students, teachers or doctors
• People taking the Indian Civil Service exam
• Seamen known as the Lascars, who worked for the British Merchant Navy

However, the majority of immigrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have arrived in the years since partition in 1947.

India Office records at the British Library

Records at the British Library (opens new window) include:

• Passport records
• Records of Indian Civil Service applicants
• Records from the National Indian Association, which was concerned with the welfare of Indian students in the UK 
• Gazetteers (one, the Imperial Gazetteer of India (opens new window), is available online)
• Copies of baptisms, marriages, burials, memorial inscriptions and wills of the Anglo-Indian and European communities living in India
• Many useful printed works

The National Archives (TNA)

Records you will find at TNA (opens new window) include:

• Registers of workers in the Indian Civil Service.
• Indian Seamen (Lascars) service records and the Special Certificate of Nationality given to them. Pedlars' Certificates were granted to many Lascars when they deserted.
• Some annual reports from Strangers' Home, a lodging house in London where many Asian seamen stayed. Notes were made of men who converted to Christianity and those who were unfit for work and were sent to Fulham workhouse.
• Records relating to indentured labourers. Following the abolition of slavery, there was a shortage of workers on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, so many indentured labourers from India were sent to work there.
• Copies of the Medical Register, 1895-1973, which has details of all doctors working in Britain.
• Many Indian nationals and people of Indian descent who were born in this country served in the wars. Their records can be found among the military records. Some of these records  are also available through Ancestry (opens new window) and Find My Past (opens new window). These are subscription websites, but are free to access at the Norfolk Record Office (NRO), the Norfolk Heritage Centre (NHC) and King's Lynn Borough Archives.
• Many useful printed works

• Many Indian students came to study at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge and so will be mentioned in J and J A Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 volumes, Cambridge, 1922-54) and J Foster, Alumni Oxonienses (eight volumes, Oxford, 1888-91). 

• The Medical Directory, which lists the names and addresses of doctors, from 1845 onwards.

• Moving Here (opens new window) - This is a website put together by TNA which has many useful pointers and links. However, please note that it has been archived and is therefore no longer being updated.

• FamilySearch (opens new window) have filmed some of the following relevant genealogical sources:

  • Baptisms, marriages and burials from Christian churches throughout the subcontinent

  • Records of some Hindu pilgrimages from Haridwar, Kurukshetra, Pehowa, Chintpurni, Jawalapur and Jawalamukhi

  • Records of Muslim marriages for Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), Qazi-Muslim marriage records (1881-1982) and Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh) and Qazi-Muslim marriage records (1921-55)

Religion

There has been a lot of migration into and within the Indian subcontinent.

It is important to know where your family originated from, and religion and names are important in establishing this.

A useful book for understanding naming patterns is V Hallan, Asian Names: Guide to Assist Understanding of the Naming Systems of People from the Indian Subcontinent (Walsall, 1993).

Indian National Archives

The following records can be found at the Indian National Archives (opens new window):

• Records created by Indian local rulers
• Hindu temple records
• Records from Islamic shrines
• Records from Sikh gurdwaras
• Waqf authority records
• Census details 1871-1923
• Indian army personnel records
• Copies of LDS films

A digitisation project is under way, but the best chance you have of finding records relevant to your family history is to employ a local researcher.

Apart from the records held at the national archives, there are others in local libraries and museums and a local researcher will have good knowledge of where to find the appropriate records.

There are various offices across India for the National Archives - see their main website for contact details:

• National Archives of India , New Delhi  
• Record Centre, Puducherry  
• Record Centre, Jaipur
• Regional Office of Bhopal  
• Record Centre, Bhubaneswar  

Other records

• Each Indian state has a regional passport office which holds passport records
• Births and deaths registers are held by the district registrar's offices (although deaths are only registered in circumstances where there is a legal case, where land or money is left, where there is a pension to be claimed, or where the death was in unusual circumstances)
• Local register offices hold some wills
• Local Marriage Registration Offices hold records of legal marriages
• Churches hold records of Anglo-Indian and Goan marriages
• Mosques hold records of Muslim marriages, but survival of these records is patchy
• Some Hindu temples hold records of Hindu marriages, but again survival is patchy
• Wealthy families usually announce marriages and deaths in local or national newspapers - The Hindu has had an obituary column since 1878
• Post-1947 censuses are held at: The Central Secretariat Library (CSL), Indian Official Document Collection, G Wing, Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi, 110001, India

Anglo-Indian or European ancestors

If your family were British, European or Anglo-Indian, living in India, then there are quite a lot of resources available to help you trace your family history.

The following websites are particularly useful and should be able to help you make a good start:

• Moving Here (opens new window)   
• Families in British India Society (opens new window)  
• The India Office in the British Library (opens new window) holds many useful records
• The Society of Genealogists (opens new window) holds copies of many baptisms, marriages, burials, monumental inscriptions and wills of the British in India

Ancestors from Bangladesh

Registering of births, marriages and deaths is not compulsory in Bangladesh, but some records are in existence.

During partition, many records were transferred between East and West Bengal.

However, attempts to get records from Pakistan have not been so successful.

The Bangladesh National Library and Archives (opens new window) can offer advice on tracing family history.  

Ancestors from Pakistan

Registration is not compulsory in Pakistan and unfortunately a fire in 1948 destroyed most of the records for the Karachi area. 

For advice on tracing family history in Pakistan, see the National Archives of Pakistan (opens new window) website.

The website Genealogy (opens new window) has a Pakistan Genealogy Forum.   

Ancestors from Sri Lanka

There is a good set of records in existence for people researching family history in Sri Lanka - for advice, contact the National Archives of Sri Lanka (opens new window). 

For information about census records contact the Information Unit of the Department of Census and Statistics.

Useful websites include Genealogy (opens new window) and Ceylon Tamils (opens new window). 

Ancestors from Nepal

A useful website for Nepalese genealogy is FamilySearch (opens new window).