Is your distant cousin in Indonesia, aunt in South Africa and grandfather in West Indies?
By h e m a n t h - October 30, 2010
My Canadian friend boasts of his ancestry to be a mix of Scottish and Norwegian. But I’m more than glad of what I am, and what my genes are composed of.
The first humans on earth are said to have originated in Africa/ India 70,000 years ago. This has been bolstered by the tests done on the tribes of a village in Tamil Nadu, India who all carry the M130 gene which is one of the oldest genes of the humans. Dravidian (people of South India, majorly) gene characteristics have been preserved relatively well, unmixed with other races for a very long time. But that doesn't infer that Indians, in general remained intact their places and did not migrate. The country has seen huge waves of migrations throughout its long history.
The capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is Madras (Chennai). There is also a city called Madras in the Oregon state of the US. There is a Madras Street in Canterbury, New Zealand. There is a Madras Road in Cambridge, England and also in Glasgow, Scotland. There is a Madras Place in Islington, England and also in Glasgow, Scotland. There is a Madras Way in Southern River, Australia and a Madras Crescent in Port Kennedy, Australia and a Madras settlement road in Cunupia, Trinidad. How on earth did these places in different corners of the world get the name of an Indian city?? Was it because of contemporary immigrants, or because of a historical settlement of a much older time? We don't have an idea. Had family trees been piously created and preserved by our ancestors, we could have had an answer today.
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| Madras in 1925 |
The capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is Madras (Chennai). There is also a city called Madras in the Oregon state of the US. There is a Madras Street in Canterbury, New Zealand. There is a Madras Road in Cambridge, England and also in Glasgow, Scotland. There is a Madras Place in Islington, England and also in Glasgow, Scotland. There is a Madras Way in Southern River, Australia and a Madras Crescent in Port Kennedy, Australia and a Madras settlement road in Cunupia, Trinidad. How on earth did these places in different corners of the world get the name of an Indian city?? Was it because of contemporary immigrants, or because of a historical settlement of a much older time? We don't have an idea. Had family trees been piously created and preserved by our ancestors, we could have had an answer today.
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| Hungarian Gypsies |
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Immigrant Indians in Guyana ca. 1850 |
Since the abolition of slavery act left a void of laborers in their colonies, starting from the 19th century, the Britishers orchestrated the successive migrations, in the name of indentures. The first wave was in 1834 when Indentured workers from India (Bhojpuris) were sent to Mauritius to work in the sugarcane fields. (A century earlier, the Tamil construction workers had been sent here, by the French). Now these people form 70% of the country’s population. In 1838, another huge migration of indentured workers was initiated by the British. Starting with Guyana, there was an influx of over half a million to the Caribbean islands (Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, etc.). Most of them were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, while people from Tamil Nadu forming the majority in Guadeloupe and Martinique. 1860 saw the first substantial migration to South Africa, of which the majority were from Tamil Nadu, forming a population of 1 Million today. In the later years, the Sikhs from the Punjab region were recruited in the British Indian army and most of them were working in Shanghai and Hong Kong. During Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee celebrations in 1897, they got to visit Canada, and this attracted a huge migration into Canada and the US. After independence, many Punjabis migrated to the UK mainly in the 1950s. Today, over 4.5 million of Sikhs live outside India. All these Indian diaspora have been complemented by immigration of professionals since the 20th century.
Indulge yourself in building your family tree and a little genealogy research. No wonder if you happen to find your distant cousin in Indonesia, aunt in South Africa and grandfather in West Indies today!
Indulge yourself in building your family tree and a little genealogy research. No wonder if you happen to find your distant cousin in Indonesia, aunt in South Africa and grandfather in West Indies today!
