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Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.
From Mike Sheehy:
‘My great-aunt, Mary Kate Sheehy, was born in India or Ceylon in 1885 and travelled back to England in 1906 when she was about 21. I have tried to locate where she area she was born in. She had a sister, Nora, and mother, Sarah Ann Sheehy, (whose maiden name was Houle). Can you give me any ideas how to go about finding her?’
Stephen says:
‘Hello Mike.
The shortest answer I can give you is: ‘not yet, but soon’. The reason for this is that later this year findmypast.co.uk will publish the so-called ecclesiastical returns of the British in India – primarily the parish registers of the Anglican church, but also including registrars’ and some Catholic records.
Once these are indexed fully and online, you should be able to make rapid progress in uncovering the Indian events relating to this part of your family. I should qualify this statement, however, by saying that the collection, while extensive, is not fully comprehensive; and especially by pointing out that Ceylon is specifically excluded.
The reason for the absence of Ceylonese records is that the Colonial Office administered the island, not the India Office (the records of which are largely deposited at the British Library). The great majority of vital records for British era Ceylon are understood still to be in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Hopefully, the Sheehy family was in the Indian Sub-continent or Burma (which is also included), and not Ceylon.
This record collection is being prepared for publication now and we hope to be able to make it available to researchers in the coming months.’
If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this month, you could be lucky next time!
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Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.
From Mike Sheehy:
‘My great-aunt, Mary Kate Sheehy, was born in India or Ceylon in 1885 and travelled back to England in 1906 when she was about 21. I have tried to locate where she area she was born in. She had a sister, Nora, and mother, Sarah Ann Sheehy, (whose maiden name was Houle). Can you give me any ideas how to go about finding her?’
Stephen says:
‘Hello Mike.
The shortest answer I can give you is: ‘not yet, but soon’. The reason for this is that later this year findmypast.co.uk will publish the so-called ecclesiastical returns of the British in India – primarily the parish registers of the Anglican church, but also including registrars’ and some Catholic records.
Once these are indexed fully and online, you should be able to make rapid progress in uncovering the Indian events relating to this part of your family. I should qualify this statement, however, by saying that the collection, while extensive, is not fully comprehensive; and especially by pointing out that Ceylon is specifically excluded.
The reason for the absence of Ceylonese records is that the Colonial Office administered the island, not the India Office (the records of which are largely deposited at the British Library). The great majority of vital records for British era Ceylon are understood still to be in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Hopefully, the Sheehy family was in the Indian Sub-continent or Burma (which is also included), and not Ceylon.
This record collection is being prepared for publication now and we hope to be able to make it available to researchers in the coming months.’
If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this month, you could be lucky next time!
More...
Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.