DNA and Genealogy

At Christmas my Indian husband took a DNA test with Ancestry.com. He just got the results. They weren't too surprising. It said his DNA was 78% South Asia and 14% Asia East. This is not uncommon for Indians in the northern states, since they are more likely to intermarry with other east asian groups. Many of the indentured laborers sent to Fiji were from Uttar Pradesh (a state in the north), his ancestors included (the ones we have found so far anyway).

What was a little surprising is that his DNA also contained 7% Melanesian and 1% Polynesian. So, one of his ggg-grandparents might have been Fijian, which we had never heard before. But, since at least 2 of his gg-grandparents were born in Fiji, although they have Indian names, it is possible that one was only half Indian. Time to do a little more climbing in the family tree.

A Fijian Indian Finds His Ancestors

It's always nice to hear stories about people finding their roots. Last week I came across this article about a Fijian Indian who found some of his ancestors and their village in India. It even takes him to Basti district (where some of my husband's family comes from). It seems to have taken him 20 years to get to them, but I'm happy he finally found some family history and relatives.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/How-this-Fijian-girmitiya-found-his-India-home/articleshow/50608918.cms

I am still on the hunt, but hopefully we too can have a happy ending to our search for history.

Finding Ancestors in Uttar Pradesh

The tourism department in Uttar Pradesh India is working on helping people find their roots. They have launched a new section of their site for people of Indian origins to do genealogy. It's free to register with the site, but if you want them to help you find your ancestors, it'll cost US$150 (they'll refund half if they don't find anything).
I personally think it's great that they are specifically reaching out to the descendants of Girmityas to help people find their ancestral homes and villages. I know that it's mostly in relation to tourism for the area, but any genealogy/family history progress is good in my opinion. I hope that their site expands and they include searchable information for others to look through. Definitely a site to keep your eye on for the future.

Family Tree Writing Conference

India has a genealogy society called Vanshavali Sanrakshan and Samvardhan Sansthan (Family Tree Preservation and Conservation Oganization). The national president of the organization says there are some 3,500 registered family tree writers in India.
Today they are having a one day conference in Jaipur, with about 400 writers from around the country in attendance.
It's very exciting to see more interest in genealogy and writing family trees happening all over the world. 

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).

Uttar Pradesh to Help in Ancestor Search

While speaking on the radio in New Zealand, Uttar Pradesh State Minister Madhukar Jetley said their state government will soon be launching a website that could help Indians abroad gather information about their ancestors from India. Many Indians that came to Fiji in the Girmit era are believed to come from UP (my husband's family included). It seems they will be making NRI cards available to Fiji-Indians for the purpose of genealogy work.
Jetley said “Everybody will be having an opportunity to get a card, printed in their own home, through the computer, through the website in which they will be able to connect and re-connect and they will be able to join in the movement where they can go back to their roots and discover where they came from.”

- See more at: http://www.fbc.com.fj/fiji/21295/nri-card-to-track-ancestors

Know India

India has a program called Know India Programme, that invites youth diaspora to come to India and learn about it. It is a 3 weeks program that teaches the kids (mostly college students) about Indian culture, economics, politics, science and technology and other industries. It's a great program for people of Indian origin to connect with their roots as well as other diaspora from all over the world.

This year Fiji is sending 19 youths. They will spend time visiting major historical and tourist sites, as well as meeting with political and business leaders.

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=255894
http://thejetnewspaper.com/2014/01/02/27th-know-india-programme-participation-from-fiji/

Old Maps of Northern India

With the finding of the emigration pass from India to Fiji, we now know the village/town that one great-grandfather is from. The name is Domariyaganj, then from there is a smaller village of Prasahwa. On these maps, from the 1800's you can see Basti (or Bustee), and Domariyaganj (with various spellings). Also, in his travels my husband has met other Indians, one of whom is from that area and may know someone in those villages who can find out some info for us.
Enjoy the maps! (click to view larger)



1777 map of northern India, with area highlighted

close-up from map above

Immigration Pass!

When Indians came to Fiji, they were each issued an immigration pass. The LDS church has microfilmed them, but for some reason (unknown to apparently everyone who works there) they don't loan out those particular microfilms to local family history centers.
So, I have been putting my husband to work contacting family members to get more genealogy information. And, one of his cousins happens to be visiting India right now. This cousin also happens to have a photo of one of the immigration records as well as several birth certificates and marriage certificates. So, now we have a copy too.
Yay! Happy dance!
Great grandfather Parbhu Lal came from the Basti region of India in 1908, and here is his immigration record. He was 14 years old, and from the village of Prasahwa.

Happy Diwali !

and wishing you a wonderful holiday season and joyous year to come

Or So The Story Goes

In my inquiries to my husband and his family for more information, I have gotten a few interesting stories, and even fewer hard facts. One of the stories is about his Grandfather.
The story goes like this...
He is born in India (around 1900), gets married and has kids. All that normal stuff. Then somewhere along the way in the (late?) 1940's he gets accused of killing someone. We don't know if he really did or not, we think not. Instead of going directly to jail, he leaves his wife and kids and goes to Fiji to work on the sugar plantations. He keeps in touch with them a little over the next few years, but contact stops after a while.
In Fiji he meets a nice young girl, gets married and has another child (1950s). Polygamist? Yup. A few years later the young mom goes crazy (certifiably) and he takes care of the child with help from friends. Then when the child is a young teen he (the dad) dies (late 1960s?). She gets raised by aunties and uncles (family friends, not blood relations).
And what of the first wife and those kids in India? It is told they immigrated to England.
So, there is a chance that we have (half) aunts, uncles and/or cousins (of various degrees of separation) living in the UK.
Or so the story goes...

Girmit Infographic

I was playing around on infogr.am and made this quick infographic about Girmitiyas in Fiji (Indian immigrant laborers)

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.

Recipe: Indo-Fijian Style Chicken Curry

When Indians came to Fiji, they naturally brought with them recipes from home. Over time these recipes took on a different flavor that reflected their new island home. Indians in Fiji don't use quite as many spices in their curry, because they just aren't as available. So, here is a family recipe for Chicken Curry made Indian-Fijian style.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 small chilies, minced (omit if you want it less spicy)
1/4 inch ginger, grated
salt to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 tsp Tumeric
1/2 tsp Cumin powder or seeds
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
1 Cinnamon stick
6 Cloves
4 Cardamom pods
2 tsp Curry powder or paste
Water as needed

Directions:
Chop chicken to bite size pieces, set aside.
In a medium size pot, heat up olive oil, add onions, seeds, and cinnamon stick.
Stir and cook for a minute, then add the minced garlic together with tumeric and curry powder/paste.
Stir and cook for a minute. Then add chicken and salt and a little water.
Stir and cover. Reduce heat to medium.
Stir every 10 minutes or so.
If the chicken sticks to the pan, add more water
Chicken should be done in 40 minutes.
Serve with rice.

Intro

I have long been interested in genealogy. It is probably because my father is also into it. He is really the better genealogist of the two of us. But, I do love hearing the stories of my ancestors and finding missing people and even connecting with the odd 5th cousin twice removed. I always assumed I'd simply take over the work once he got too old and that would be it. But, I have found myself itching to do stuff now (why wait!). And this is where my husband enters the picture.

My husband loves his heritage, but doesn't know much about his family history. He is an Indian from the Fiji Islands. His family immigrated from India to Fiji a few generations back (one grandfather, and 3 sets of great-grandparents). The last time we visited family in Fiji I made him gather as much family history info as possible from living relatives. He even got me photographs of 2 of his grandparents birth certificates.

So, with my dad researching my family, I have decided to research my husbands. I am hoping that writing down my goals and putting things out there for all to see I may get more done (it is motivation for me). Here I will figure out how to order and view microfilm from Fiji, find ship records of their immigrations, and eventually I hope to find records in India (which is harder than it seems). Who knows we may even find living relatives in India.

snapshot of a portrait of Shyam Lal (grandfather) as a young man