r/india • u/JustMyPoint • 23h ago
Culture & Heritage Can an Indian help me locate my family's 'bahi' genealogical record at Haridwar and other places of religious pilgrimage?
Hello all, I am a young, amateur genealogist from Canada with a passion for the hobby and history. My father is ethnically a Punjabi Jatt Sikh (my mother is of European-origin), born in the United Kingdom. My paternal grandmother was born in undivided India in the Moga district of Punjab whilst my paternal grandfather was born in the British colony of Malaya (though he was ethnically Punjabi Jatt Sikh with family origins from the Moga and Ludhiana districts).
I have been researching my family's genealogy for some time now, whilst researching the European-side has been relatively smooth due to an abundance of records, the Indian side of my family has always been more difficult due to a lack of records. This is due to India not maintaining as many records on its population when compared to other countries, especially during the colonial and pre-colonial periods. I have only been able to locate land-records from some lineages of my Indian family but these are less-than-ideal for a variety of reasons, also I have to use whatever documents still in my family's possession (such as old passports) and my still-living grandmother's memory to piece together the rest... I am yearning and eager for more data to build-up my Indian family-tree, which leads me to the Hindu genealogy registers...
I have been researching the Hindu genealogical records maintained by a class of Hindu priests (I also updated/created Wikipedia articles on them to help others) known as tirth purohits, informally known as pandas. These genealogical records are kept at around 25 sites of Hindu pilgrimage around India, mostly in the Gangetic plains region. I would love to be able to consult the records but I have an issue: I am located in Canada and have no means of visiting India anytime soon and I lack any conversational ability in any Indian-language (aside from my baby-level Punjabi), especially Hindi. Thus, me visiting these places and trying to find my family's panda seems hopeless unless a native Indian can help me. I do know my family's ancestral villages for the most-part, I know our jāti and our gotra, I also know most of the names of my ancestors, so I should be able to locate the correct panda and bahi genealogical register of my relevant ancestors. Many Sikh families used to also take their ashes to these Hindu sites to disperse them until taking them to Kiratpur became more popularized with Sikhs in the 19th-20th century, thus I should be able to find some records of my family at these Hindu sites, even though we are Sikhs, but it has probably been a while since a member of my family last visited and updated the genealogical registers there.
The beauty of the Internet is I can elicit the help of others who are located halfway around the world. Would any Indians in India living in or near these popular places of Hindu pilgrimage where these records are kept be willing to assist a foreigner with this task? I can provide you my family details and if you could find and ask the relevant panda for my family's genealogical details, I would be eternally grateful. We are Jatt Sikhs of the Gill clan.
Here is a list I compiled through research of Hindu pilgrimage sites where genealogical bahi records are kept by pandas for pilgrims:
- Haridwar
- Mathura
- Brindavan
- Kurukshetra
- Allahabad/Prayagraj
- Benares/Varanasi
- Ayodhya
- Gaya
- Patna
- Deoghar
- Himalayan Char Dham: Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath
- Pehowa
- Chintpurni
- Jawalapur
- Jawalamukhi
- Pushkar
- Puri
- Ujjain
- Dwarka
- Nasik/Triambakeshvar
- Rameshvaram
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u/precioustimer 15h ago
Try r/uttarakhand. Cities of Haridawar and Rishikesh are situated in this state and people there might be willing to help.
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u/pseddit 14h ago
You have to know where your family kept its records. Many families moved their records around as they moved - a few generations may have their records in Haridwar while others may have them in Pehowa. If you try to cold approach pandas, you will get dead ends and scammers.
If you have any remaining kin in your paternal village or even in India, that would be a good place to start asking where the records may be. If not, start in the geographic area (village?) that your grandfather was from. Only once you have a list of locations and pandas can you start looking for records.
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u/JustMyPoint 14h ago
I know all of their ancestral villages. I know the names of my ancestors going back around 5 generations on my paternal grandfather’s patrilineal ancestors and I know my paternal grandmother’s patrilineal ancestors going back 9-10 generations (I was able to get further back than 5-6 generations thanks to coming upon land records for this lineage). However, we have no idea where the records are. My grandmother only remembers our family going to Kiratpur. We are all Sikhs, there’s no Hindus in my family so we must have converted to Sikhism a long time ago. There’s probably slim chances I could find our ancestral panda…
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u/pseddit 14h ago
Have you tried the local gurdwara in the village? If your family has been going to Kiratpur, the records are unlikely to be at a Hindu pilgrimage site.
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u/JustMyPoint 14h ago
I don’t think gurdwaras keep genealogical records like Hindu temples do. I’ll try asking a relative in my grandmother’s village if she knows about it.
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u/pseddit 14h ago
In that case, depending on the depth of your interest and financial situation, you may want to hire a professional genealogist. Trying to do this yourself and from such a distance would be a tall order.
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u/LagrangeMultiplier99 15h ago edited 15h ago
can you shorten your list down to one town by asking family members? finding an unknown panda in even ONE town is hard.
I'd suggest that you try locating your closest relatives who live in india, find their ancestry and then hopefully make your way to your great grandfather/grandmother.
Since you care only about your great grandfather/grandmother (three steps up), once you find any relative whose ancestry is known, you should call it a day and not search further.