Gay,
I have recently been to the British Library a few times, looking for records
of my great-great grandfather, who was in the Royal Irish Regiment in India
(before the mutiny). also for his father, who was employed by the HEIC in
London!
I managed to find quite a lot of information. However, a lot of HEIC records
were destroyed when they ceased to be, in 1860!
The staff are very helpful. However, Ceylon was never part of the HEIC
'empire', it was 'ruled' by the Colonial office and all their records are
at
the National Archives at Kew!
Chris Merry
----- Original Message -----
From: Gay Fielding <gayze(a)tpg.com.au>
To: <srilanka(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:31 PM
Subject: [SRILANKA] Honourable East India Company
Again here is some saved information which I thought at the time may
have
been useful to me....Some of the links may now be out of
date..________________________________________________________________ The
Honourable East India Company originally had its own army. After the
Indian
Mutiny of 1857, loyal elements, both European and Indian regiments,
became
the Indian Army. This was managed quite separately from the British Army
in
India. Most of the HEIC and Indian Army records, including records
of
births marriages and deaths, are in the India Office archives, but there
are
some military records in the PRO at Kew. The records of the Army of
the
HEIC
to 1857, the Indian Army from 1857 to 1947 and the Indian Civil
Service of
the same period are archived in the British Library Oriental and India
Office Collections. These are now found in the main British Library site
at
St Pancras. You can find out more about the Library and its
collections on
their website:
http://www.bl.uk/ For information on East India Company
army
and Indian Army records at the British Library; see:
http://www.bl.uk/collections/oriental/records/overview.html/and:
http://www.bl.uk/collections/oriental/records/iorarrgt.html#LMILHead The
British Library have published a very useful book "India Office Library
and
Records - A Brief Guide to Biographical Sources"' by Ian A
Baxter, 2nd
Edition published 1990; ISBN 0 7123 0637 4. There is also quite a good
section of records relating to India, including the HEIC, in the Society
of
Genealogists Library. You may also find it useful to visit some of
these
HEIC and British in India Related Web Sites: a) Alex Glendinning's Home
Page
other
things, it gives you a list of the LDS film numbers for BDM in the
three
presidencies in Colonial India. Also has links to information of some
British Army regiments serving in India. d) The East India Company on
http://www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html e) National Archives of
Singapore on
http://www.museum.org.sg/nas/nas.html f) Barney
Tyrwitt-Drake's
home page on
http://www.tdrake.demon.co.uk/
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