Were your ancestors eaten by lions?

Were your ancestors eaten by lions?

15 February 2006

Family History is now one of the most popular phrases put into search engines on the internet due to the huge popularity of the BBC 2 series ´Who Do You Think You Are?´

If your family lived in the UK in 1901, then the census is your easy starting point to finding out more about your ancestors. But what do you do if your ancestors came from elsewhere?

The National Archives, Kew, holds family history records for people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Just like Gurinder Chadha, director of hit film "Bend It Like Beckham" and star of "Who Do You Think You Are?" your family could have travelled round the Commonwealth to get work.

People from an Indian background who are trying to research their family tree are likely to find interesting material in the  papers on indentured labour held by The National Archives. In the early to mid 1800s the abolition of slavery created a shortage of workers in the colonies, and industries such as the sugar plantations put pressure on the British Government to assist them with their labour problems before they went into decline. The government´s answer was to send a number of Indian indentured labourers to the sugar-producing colonies like Mauritius.

The indentured labourers sent to the sugar plantations are regarded as the most important early immigrants of this type. It was the start of the recognition that skilled labourers could move around the world, not just around a country or state. 

However, the earliest indentured labour immigrations were fraught with obstacles and accusations of abuse. The system almost collapsed and stopped for a couple of years; but with careful procedures in place and monitoring, the movement of labour was re-opened in 1844, with Indian people moving to Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad. As the years progressed, Indian labourers moved to more countries and like Gurinder Chadha, your ancestors could have been sent to Kenya and Uganda in the 1880s to assist with the construction of the Mombasa to Kampala railway.

The story on the Indian rail workers is infamous. It is believed that over 100 people were killed by a pair of man-eating lions who terrorised workers while they were laying the tracks of the railway across the mountains of Uganda. The true story was used to make the film "The Ghost and the Darkness" in 1996 which starred Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.

Abi Husainy, records specialist at The National Archives, said: ´The history of indentured labourers is fascinating. It highlights how governments recognised the need to move labour around the world, and the records give a lot of information about the life the workers led and what jobs they were doing.

´If you are tracing your family history, it can be invaluable as the documents give you details on some of the labourers and where they came from. These details could then take you right back to the town or village that your family left over a hundred years ago.´

Another excellent resource for researching ancestors who migrated to the United Kingdom is the Moving Here website. This documents 200 years of migration history mainly from Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian backgrounds. The site allows visitors to search for documents on migration such as ships´ passenger lists, and an interactive section allows people to exchange their own experiences of migration.