Please note that this FIBIS blog is now part of the main FIBIS website and has moved to http://www.new.fibis.org/category/news . This site will remain here for archive purposes only.
FIBIS blog has moved
December 21st, 2011FIBIS member in Colombo, Sri Lanka
February 17th, 2011FIBIS member Jerry Wraith is in Colombo, Sri Lanka until Feb 27th 2011. Are there any FIBIS members in Sri Lanka whom he could contact with a view of setting up a research group which will transcribe Birth’s, Death’s and Marriages in Ceylon? These were not apparently sent back to the UK and are therefore not held in the Oriental and India Office records in the British Library. In addition, they do not appear to have been filmed by the LDS.
Please contact Jerry by e-mail on jerrywr@gmail.com
FIBIS Chairman, Peter Bailey, to be interviewed on “Digging Up Your Roots”
February 14th, 2011The BBC Scotland series “Digging Up Your Roots” is currently focussing on Scotsmen who emigrated or travelled abroad. This coming Sunday, they are to interview Peter Bailey, FIBIS Chairman about Scotsmen who served in British India during the Company Era or the Raj.
Listeners in Scotland will be able to listen to it at Mid-day this coming Sunday, February 20th and others on a podcast thereafter.
WARNING – Email Scam
January 27th, 2011The The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies (IHGS) has today issued the following warning.
WARNING – Email Scam 27 January 2011
It has come to our attention that an email scam is in progress whereby someone masquerading as a representative of IHGS is asking for personal details. They are claiming that a large inheritance could be yours if you supply personal details that could be used for identity fraud. THIS DOES NOT COME FROM US. DO NOT SEND YOUR DETAILS. An example of the fraudulent email is below.
My name is David Lord and I am a representative of The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies (IHGS). Our department deals with issues of genealogy and especially genealogical (family) trees. We discovered several evidences to consider You as a heir of great family (clan) and our client supposes that You might be her relative. In order to identify You as a heir and assure our suggestions and connect You with Your possible relative, we need to check some information. Would You be so kind to tell us Your parents names and Your birthday date as it’s obligatory for our research and it is also at Your interest. We are looking forward for Your quick response and commitment! Respectfully Yours, David Lord.
via News – IHGS.
Digging Up Your Roots
January 27th, 2011Those of you who read ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ magazine might have have seen that this months TV and Radio Pick of the month is ‘Digging Up Your Roots‘ to be aired Sunday 30 January 2010 at 12.05pm on BBC Radio Scotland.
FIBIS will be receiving a mention in the show. The BBC Radio Scotland website gives the following summary of the episode:
Listener David Price got in touch regarding his great-grandfather George.
He says, “There was just this great hole in information about [him]. He just seemed to have disappeared off the radar in 1841. Until recently the trail went cold at this point. George’s next entry in official records was his marriage in Calcutta. But how, when and why had he turned up there?”.
David wondered if he might have been around during the turbulent times of the Indian mutiny and contacted the “Families in British India Society” who provided David with a list of soldiers awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal. Four George Prices were included including one in the 42nd Foot, better known as The Black Watch. David visited the Regimental Archivist at Balhousie Castle in Perth who provided him with lots of information from their records. But still David had no proof that this was “his” George.
By coincidence at this same time David had re-established contact with his only first cousin on the Price side. She mentioned that her father had given her a pendant with an Indian connection many years previously. On checking the pendant she discovered that one side displayed Queen Victoria’s head, the other read “India 1857-1858″ and the engraving around the edge of the coin read: “G. Price – 42nd Foot – Royal Highlanders”.
Listen this week to hear more about George Price’s story and his recruitment into the Black Watch.
To read more about the episode visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xx98g
What is FIBIS going to be doing that is NEW this year?
January 20th, 20111. Adding more new entries to its FREE searchable database – we hope to reach the three quarter million mark by the end of the year – not bad considering we are a small society and all the transcriptions are done by our volunteer members. The Baptisms/Marriages and Burials that are held at the British Library are less than 80% complete, so FIBIS is transcribing and placing into its on-line database as much of the remaining 20+ percent that we can find. Already transcribed and uploaded are the BMD announcements from the “East Indies Register” which have plugged some gaps, so we are continuing to add some of the years covered by “The Times of India” “The Bombay Times” & “Journal of Commerce”, “ The Madras Mail” and “South African Commercial Advertiser.” We have also found a series of “Allen’s Indian Mail” to be transcribed. These vital records are among the most valuable that we believe FIBIS can provide to those searching for their ‘lost’ ancestor.
2. Having won for the third time one of the prestigious Federation of Family History Societies “Best Website Awards” – First Place in the 2010 Small Societies Division, we are very proud of our Webmaster – Valmay Young – who is now in process of introducing many new exciting features to the website including a mobile optimized theme and a members social network – to be launched at the WDYTYA Exhibition in February.
3. FIBIS will probably be the first small family history society to have an online Social Network area for our Members – the FIBIS Social network will be an area where members can:
- connect with other members
- create their own photo albums
- join or create an interest group
- use member discussion forums
- send private messages
- can use the chat facility to converse with other members
- access the FIBIS Multmedia files for both Audio and Video
4. FIBIS is setting up a new online book shop to be launched with the new website – this will probably have one of the largest selections of books on Colonial India available to be purchased in any one place, and our members are given a discount.
5. One of the first small Family History Societies to offer Research Grants to its members – who are willing to undertake research on behalf of FIBIS into some aspect of British Indian history which will be of help or of general interest to others wishing to investigate their own family history. Fibis would aim to publish the results if they are of sufficient quality.
6. To reflect our maturing status FIBIS has decided to update its image with a new crimson and gold style, more in tune with current marketing practice. It will feature notably at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live exhibition at Olympia on 25-27 February on our new exhibition stand and is designed to make a greater impact for British India on the family history community.
FamilySearch organization
January 20th, 2011I was fortunate enough recently to attend a lecture by Sharon Hintze, Director of the Hyde Park Family History Centre in London. She explained what was happening to the FamilySearch website at the current time.
1. Large amounts of data, transcribed from their microfilms, are being transferred from their beta test site to their new FamilySearch site at www.familysearch.org
2. This is evidently taking time and tranches are being ‘migrated’ into this site on a continuing basis in the middle of the night Utah time. This may cause the site to be inaccessible during daytime hours in other parts of the world.
3. This continual updating means that it may be useful for researchers to visit the site on a regular basis.
4. This is a worldwide project and, evidently, no particular emphasis will be given to the records of British India.
5. In the longer term, the transcribed records as currently presented, sometimes containing less data than appears on the original, will be augnented by a digital image of the original record. No timescale is available for this.
6. The expression ‘FamilySearch’ will be used for all this activity and the Family History Centres will, in future, become known as ‘FamilySearch’ Centres.
I hope that you find this helpful.
Good Hunting!
Peter Bailey
FIBIS Chairman
Temporary Closure of Members Area
January 9th, 2011FIBIS members should all have received the latest newletter via email and heard that we will be launching a new website soon. Unfortunately this means we will be temporarily closing the members area for a couple of weeks whilst we implement a few changes. We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause our members, but hopefully you will feel it was worth the inconvenience when we launch the new website next month.
Featured Article, Image and Project for January 2011
January 2nd, 2011Every month the fibiwiki moderators chose an article, image and project to feature on the frontpage of the fibiwiki. Fibiwiki is a website about British India that anyone can edit. This month’s featured article, image and project are:
- Featured image – The photo was taken in Rawalpindi at the regimental school of the 48th Regiment of Foot
- Featured article – Singapore
- Featured Project – LocationsProject
FamilySearch.org Website Changes
December 14th, 2010FamilySearch.org and FamilySeach Beta merged today. There are many new features and free collections to help you with your Family History research, but those used to the old website might find it rather difficult to find their way around. It might help to read the FamilySearch.org Website Changes in the FamilySearch blog.
To access the India and Ceylon records from this site, scroll down the page to “Browse by location” and select “Asia and Middle East”.
The India Vital Records Index available on the FamilySearch is only a partial index with more records hopefully to be added at a later date. The table below shows the number of records by locality online as of April 2010.
| Locality | Births and Baptisms, 1800-1945 | Marriages, 1800-1945 | Deaths and Burials, 1800-1945 |
| Bangalore | 438 | 139 | 118 |
| Bangladesh | 3,106 | 0 | 0 |
| Bengal | 433,834 | 104,999 | 309,736 |
| Bombay | 118,243 | 31,653 | 95,879 |
| Calcutta | 180 | 68 | 79 |
| Delhi | 13 | 5 | 0 |
| India | 26,633 | 13,273 | 25,438 |
| Madras | 276,641 | 53,805 | 135,279 |
| Tamil Nadu | 2,976 | 2 | 0 |
| Total | 862,064 | 203,944 | 555,534 |