The British Library will be holding their monthly, free, introductory training sessions in family history on the following dates in early 2011:
Wednesday, 12 January
Thursday, 17 February
Tuesday, 15 March
Wednesday, 13 April
As always, they start at 11.00 and last about one hour. To secure a place those interested should contact hrs-training@bl.uk
A free exhibition of archive material relating to India will be held at Hampshire Record Office on the top floor gallery from 09:00am Monday 25 October 2010 to Tuesday 30 November 2010 . The exhibition is open Mon-Fri 9am-7pm, Sat 9am-4pm, no booking required.
Visit Hantsweb website or telephone 01962 846154 for further details
Readers might be interested in the latest podcast from the National Archives on the First Afghan War. The national Arhive give the following description.
In this talk, journalist and historian Jules Stewart will guide us through the 1838-1842 period of Afghan history. Just some of the events explored include the Persian siege of Herat with Russian assistance, which Britain feared would lead to an invasion of India through Afghanistan; the issuance of the infamous Simla Manifesto that justified the invasion; the military and political blunders that brought on the uprising in Kabul; the forced evacuation of the Kabul garrison and the destruction of the entire army on the retreat to Jalalabad; and the second invasion by the Army of Retribution and the inconclusive end to the war. The talk will also take a brief look at the second and third Afghan wars.
Jules Stewart has spent most of his professional life in journalism, reporting from more than 30 countries. A graduate of New York University and the University of Madrid, he began his career as an academic, lecturing at two US universities before moving to Madrid, where he spent 20 years as a journalist. After joining Reuters, Stewart re-located to London in 1987, now his permanent home. He has been working as a freelance reporter since 1994. In recent years Stewart has turned his efforts to authorship, producing four books to date on the history of the British on the North-West Frontier and in Afghanistan.
Author: Jules Stewart Duration: 00:31:11
To listen to this podcast visit The National Archives website
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/the-first-afghan-war.htm.
The latest dates for training sessions in using India Office Record family history sources at the British Library have been announced.
Every month members of the APAC Reference Services team offer a free, 75-minute introduction to the Department’s family history sources. Anyone is welcome to attend – participants do not have to be holders of a Library Reader Pass. The emphasis is on explaining the background to our holding returns of baptisms, marriages and burials of European Christians from all over South Asia, and providing practical guidance on how to use the name indexes.
The next sessions will be held on:
18 August
22 September
12 October
18 November
14 December
All sessions last from 11:00 to 12:15
To book a place, please contact:
Email: hrs-training@bl.uk
Tel. +44 (0)20 7412 7865
Fax +44 (0)20 7412 7641
The Brick Lane Circle have announced the following event.
Sunday 4 July 2010, 11am-5pm, Lab 2 & 3
Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU23 June 2010 is the 253 years anniversary of the Battle of Plassey. It was on this day in 1757 that the East India Company conquered Bengal under the leadership of Robert Clive. It was also the beginning of the British Indian Empire.
Brick Lane Circle recently delivered a unique project that engaged a group of young people (18-25) who explored and wrote a book on the legacy of the East India Company and London’s historical links with Bengal.
The 2010 Annual Plassey Conference has been designed to continue and help increase the interest generated by the writing of the book Plassey’s Legacy: Young Londoners Explore the Hidden Story of the East India Company.
You will be able to meet some of the young authors at the conference and obtain a free copy of the book.
MORNING SESSION 11.00AM-1.30PM: CHAIRED BY SAMIA RAHMAN
CATALOGUING THE CLIVE PAPERS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY
By Marie-Claire Wyatt, who has an MA in Medieval Studies from the University of York and received her Archive qualification from University College Dublin in 2005. She has worked at the British Library since 2007, first in the Manuscripts Department cataloguing the Coleridge Family Archive, then in India Office Records where she has been responsible for cataloguing the papers of Robert, Baron Clive of Plassey and of John, 13th Lord Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay.
THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1770: NEW PERSPECTIVES
By Dr Tirthankar Roy, who is Reader in Economic History, London School of Economics. He has published extensively on economic and social history of modern South Asia, including a successful text, The Economic History of India 1857-1947, OUP India 2000, and a monograph on the history of the textile artisans from Cambridge University Press in 1999.
LUNCH 1.30 – 2.15PM (£6.00 per person for lunch)
AFTERNOON SESSION 2.15-5.00PM: CHAIRED BY NIAZ ALOM
MONSOON TRADERS: THE MARITIME WORLD OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
By Dr Robert Blyth, who is curator of imperial and maritime history at the National Maritime Museum. He has written on British India’s maritime frontiers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and on the history and material culture of transatlantic slavery. He is currently co-authoring a maritime history of the East India Company.
TEA: DIVIDING POLITICS, UNITING HERITAGE
By Ruhana Ali, who is a co-author of Plassey’s Legacy. She graduated in Social Policy, Criminal Justice & Psychology from the London School of Economics. She is a freelance writer, journalist, television presenter in the community and currently works as a community organiser for London Citizens.
All welcome! Free Entry! Advance booking only!
For details please call 07574224891 or email bricklanecircle@yahoo.co.uk
All thirty-two counties for 1901 and 1911 Irish census are now available to search online free on The National Archive of Ireland website. As there was a strong Irish connection with India this should hopefully help many British India family historians.
The census can be searched by religion, occupation, relationship to head of family, literacy status, county or country of origin, Irish language proficiency, illnesses, and even child survival information. You don’t have to enter a name to search the census, so a search for India being the country of origin produces 3598 results.
To access the advanced search options click on the “more search options” button on the Search page. The advanced fields will then appear on the right of the Search page.
The following article from the Times of India on 12 May 2010 may interest some of our readers.
MUMBAI: Imagine poring over the official records of the opium trade in Mumbai in the 19th-century or going through the FIR filed in 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi’s murder. You could even read the private letters of B R Ambedkar or a script of All India Radio’s news bulletin from the day India went to war with Pakistan in 1965.
Until now, ordinary citizens had no access to millions of such documents, which are a repository of the country’s past and are locked away in the Delhi-based National Archives of India. But thanks to a proposed amendment to the law that governs access to these records, all that could soon change. Any common man, and not just academic reseachers, could soon be able to go through the history documented in them.
The National Archives is a treasure trove of non-current records kept by the government of India. It was set up in 1891 in Calcutta as the Imperial Record Department and was shifted to Delhi in 1926. While it is based in the national capital, it also has centres in Bhopal, Jaipur, Puducherry and Bhubaneswar.
The National Archives holds detailed administrative records from the time Akbar sat on the throne in Delhi in the 16th and 17th centuries to the present. In addition, there are thousands of private papers, such as letters written by stalwarts like Dadabhai Naoroji to Shrinivas Ramanujam, the great mathematician. There are also the so-called Oriental Records, which refer to revenue grants made by Mughal rulers and treatises maintained by their court historians.
Under the present laws, only a ‘research scholar’ can read anything kept in the National Archives. This too involves a considerable amount of red tape, as a person must fill up a form to show s/he is enrolled in a recognised university and doing genuine academic work related to the subject. Consequently, most people can’t view such historical records.
Now, a review panel constituted by the National Archives has suggested certain changes to the Public Records Act of 1993, which governs access to such records. Firstly, it has proposed that the term ‘research scholar’ be replaced with ‘user’, so that ordinary citizens too can ask to see documents kept in the archives. Secondly, people will be given readers’ tickets so that they can enter the premises of the National Archives. That documents as fascinating as the original court proceedings of Bhagat Singh’s trial or field reports filed by British military officers in 19th-century Aawadh may soon be in the public domain should bring special cheer to writers, scriptwriters, filmmakers and other professionals who would be able to get first-hand access to primary sources on which they may base their work.
Another change in the law suggests that government departments declassify documents and transfer them to the National Archives within 20 years of their creation, and not 25 as is the case now. This would also harmonise this particular law with the Right to Information Act, which says that even documents exempted from the public domain should be made available two decades after their creation. “It was observed that records from the post-Independence period were not being transferred to the National Archives by various government departments,” said a culture ministry official.
via Soon, rare archival records likely to be thrown open to public – India – The Times of India.
Date: Saturday, 22 May 2010
Venue: The Chancellor’s Room, Hughes Parry Hall, University of London, 19-26 Cartwright Gardens, London, WC1H.
Note new venue, a short distance due south from the British Library. (See map)
FIBIS members and members of the public are all welcome
Admission Free
Peter Bailey, FIBIS Chairman, and other trustees will be holding a ‘surgery’ in the Chancellor’s Room to offer advice to anyone wishing for help in solving a difficult genealogical problem, or finding their way around the FibiWiki.
The programme will include lectures on:
Speaker: Dr. Kevin Greenbank, Archivist and Administrator
Speakers: Wendy Pratt (FIBIS Member) and Peter Bleakley.
In between talks there will be refreshments and time for members to discuss matters of common interest. There will also be a bookstall selling FIBIS Guides and Fact Files, and other books relating to the history of British India.
Those wishing to attend the meeting on 23 May 2009 are requested to contact Mrs Emma Sullivan, 40 Poulton Avenue, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 3PY, or alternatively e-mail her at: Membership@fibis.org