WHO ARE THE ANGLO-INDIANS?
The term Anglo- Indian principally refers to families with both English and Indian ancestry, many of whom worked for the Indian railways. Though there are still some 350,000 Anglo- Indians living in India, the majority created a worldwide diaspora by migrating after India gained independence in 1947, with famous descendants including WDYTYA? alumni Lord Sebastian Coe, Rupert Penry-Jones and Alistair McGowan.
Your first port of call for researching your Anglo- Indian roots should be the records of the India Office held at the British Library. This is the central repository for all papers relating to Britain’s Indian involvement and includes vast tracts of records that detail the lives of the AngloIndian community, from wills and pensions to enlightening personal biographies. You can search through 300,000 baptism, burial, death, birth and marriage records that span 1600 to 1949 for free at indiafamily.bl.uk, while findmypast.co.uk includes 2.4 million family history records from the collection.
As well as having its own record database, the Families in British India Society ( fibis.org) is staffed by individuals with an unequalled knowledge of Britain’s rule of the subcontinent. They’ll be happy to answer your queries.