INDIA - Indian nationals

[Bassworm]

Hi All,

My GGG Grandfather was a Culcutta -born Moslem called Abdullah Hadjee Allee. I know a lot about his life in London, he came here about 1840 and married a local girl, but I have no idea what records exist in India for births or anything else. I know his father was called Abdal Allee but that's all I have.

Do any records exist in Calcutta for native Indians (As opposed to Britons or British Indians for instance) for the early part of the 19th century?

[droops]

The European Indians did have records, not sure how far back though. The native Indians didnt.


One programme of "Who do you think you are" was about tracing her Indian ancestors. She found that her family had a priest that the family went to over the generations and recorded who was born. It did go back a few generations, but only males were on it.

Whether each family has such a priest, I dont know. How to found out, havent a clue. Would love to know as my wife's ggrandfather is native Indian.

[Bassworm]

Many thanks for the reply, that's pretty much what I expected which is a real shame. Would love to know more about that branch of the family.

[Lynntony]

Just a thought.  Wouldn't the Mosque have records? It may be worth a letter or email. The only problem is that there are so many! If you could find out the area in which your GGG Grandfather was born you could (?) perhaps narrow the field down somewhat.
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosques_in_Kolkata

Hope that helps

Tony

[Bassworm]

Good idea Tony, and another possible avenue to explore. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea where in Calcutta he came from, or for that matter, whether he was even came from the city itself or somewhere else close. I suspect we'll probably never know unless I come across some information that pinpoints his home region more closely.

Thanks for the link.
Mike.

[Lynntony]

Calcutta in the early 1800s was a much smaller place than the sprawl of the present. There's a map at
http://www.payer.de/quellenkunde/quellen1603.htm which gives the main central area. If your GGG Grandfather was Calcutta born it may be able to reduce the number of Mosques down quite a bit. If you can find the present day central Mosque they may be able to help narrow the search down to the ones that would have been in existence around the 1820/1830 time period. (Not sure what year your GGG Gf was born)
The main problem I forsee is that much was destroyed during some of the Hindhu/Muslim altercations that afflicted Calcutta after partition in 1947/8. I would imagine that many records were destroyed during that period.

Tony