A Ray of Hope for India Genealogy Records
Genealogy records from India are as rare as albino tigers, unless your ancestors were expats from the UK. Not only are genealogy records generally not available online, but many of the paper records are also not accessible to the general public. This is somewhat surprising given that a) India was a former British colony and b) as such, has some decent genealogy records. So where are all of India’s genealogy records? The answer may surprise some people. A vast treasure trove of genealogy records are locked up at the Delhi-based National Archives of India. How do you access all these Indian genealogy records? The answer is you can’t unless you happen to be an accredited academic researcher from a university and you are prepared to fill out a variety of forms to prove that fact.
A proposed amendment to the law in India may soon change access to India’s genealogy records. The proposed Right to Information Act if passed would allow ordinary citizens the right to search for information about their ancestors at the National Archives of India. These archives were set up in 1891 and contain a massive amount of genealogy information that is generally consistent with what is found in most other former British colonies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This is potentially great news for anyone with Indian ancestry.
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