Ancestors from the Indian subcontinent

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