Hindu Pilgrimage Records Online

FamilySearch just added 256,816 more images of Hindu Pilgrimage records to it's online image collection. They aren't indexed, and are in Hindi (and possibly other languages, I haven't looked too deeply into it yet), so not usable by me yet. But, my husband might be able to translate some for me.

 

 

These records contain lots of family information for those who made these pilgrimages. The information can include names of ancestors, ancestral villages, dates of births marriages and deaths, and info about the family they marry into. They don't mention women much though. But, some of the records currently online date back to 1194! How cool is that!

 

I guess I have more Hindi learning to do (I can currently only read half the alphabet).

FamilySearch Photo Duplication

A couple months ago I found out about a service that would have been helpful to know about earlier. I'm not sure why the 'help' people at FamilySearch and the Family History Library didn't just recommend this. They apparently don't know about it. Someone ought to tell them. Anyway...

FamilySearch has a FREE photo duplication service. If you have something specific you want a (digital) copy of, there is a simple form you can fill out and they will e-mail you an image of your document.

Now, you have to be specific, they won't do research for you, but isn't it nice to know they can copy stuff for you. Like, for instance, an emigration pass you know the exact name and record number for on a microfilm they can't/won't lend out.

 

 

Microfilm

In July I ordered some microfilm for the first time, through Family Search. A week and a half later I got one, the other three were backordered. I'm not entirely sure why they don't have that kind of status on the website. I mean, a library can tell you if a book is on the shelf or checked out, why can't they do that with the film. I totally would have ordered something else in the meantime. But, I digress.
The film that came in was the Indian birth records index (from Fiji) from 1895-1929. Great! I have several names in that time period that I am looking for. Then comes the frustrating part.

#1 frustration- The first 25 years of this index is all jumbled together, not separated by year. The last 10 years is, so that was nice.

Frustration #2- Indians in Fiji in these years didn't usually have last names. So, searching for families is difficult.

Frustration #3- Because they don't have last names, the index is alphabetized by fathers first name, then mothers name, then childrens names. This may be good if I knew the fathers name, but in most cases, I didn't.

So, I went through all 263 pages of years 1895-1919 one by one, looking in the childrens column hoping to spot a name I was looking for (note, there are 86 rows on each page). Then I had to look at the year, and hope it also matched. Then I could write down all the info in a list of possible matches. I have 7 for one of the names on my list. And 3 with no matches. Argh!

On the plus side, I do have 7 possible matches, and I found some siblings for one of the known ancestors. So, hopefully soon I will get the other rolls of film and be able to find more names, and then I can order the specific rolls needed to find the actual records and not just the record numbers on the index. At least now I know what to be prepared for next time.

I also couldn't help but think how easy it would be to index these records. They were all in neat typed rows. Given the time, I could easily do it. And I would too, if the LDS church would ever digitize them and offer them up to be indexed. Maybe they will someday.

Ordering Microfilm

FamilySearch and the LDS church have lots of Fijian records on microfilm. On the downside, they are not indexed or digitized yet (i.e. not searchable online). On the plus side, you can check out most of it to be sent to your nearest family history library to look through.

I have a few names and dates to start off my search, so I have ordered 4 rolls of film (2 births, 1 marriage, and a book on Indian migrants in Fiji). I hope I will be able to find the people I'm looking for and maybe enough info to need to order more film.
I hope one day they will get around to digitizing these so I won't have to order stuff and go to a library with a microfilm reader to look through it. It can be difficult to get a babysitter midday to drive to another city to sit and look through film. Oh well, I'm sure the work will be worth it in the end.