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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Tracing roots to India

For 25 years Shamshu Deen

by

20120526

Since he was a young boy Shamshu Deen has had a de­sire to find his an­ces­tral roots; he says he is ad­dict­ed to "this stuff"–ge­neal­o­gy. De­spite be­ing well-known in the field of ge­neal­o­gy, which is the study of fam­i­lies and the trac­ing of their lin­eage and his­to­ry, Deen said he was "more of a fam­i­ly his­to­ri­an" than a ge­neal­o­gist. He has been help­ing fam­i­lies of East In­di­an ori­gins to trace their roots to In­dia for more than 25 years. His dri­ve to help them came af­ter he found his in 1972. Deen, 65, is re­spon­si­ble for for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar find­ing their roots in In­dia. Deen taught for 37 years in Trinidad and Cana­da and has writ­ten two books: Solv­ing East In­di­an Roots in Trinidad, and Lin­eages and Link­ages: Solv­ing Trinidad roots in In­dia. Speak­ing about his work, he said he nev­er ap­proached peo­ple but rather, they con­tact­ed him about find­ing their fam­i­ly's ori­gins, with some even want­i­ng to trav­el to In­dia to meet their rel­a­tives. Oth­ers, he said are quite con­tent for him to find the in­den­tured labour­ers' em­i­gra­tion pass, which showed the name of the im­mi­grant, the ship, age, caste, vil­lage, oc­cu­pa­tion and body marks, among oth­er in­for­ma­tion. "I don't go in­to peo­ple's fam­i­ly un­less I am re­quest­ed. "I have nev­er ad­ver­tised my work yet peo­ple come to me," Deen said. He spoke with the Sun­day Guardian last Wednes­day.

This year marks 167 years since the ar­rival of close to 150,000 reg­is­tered in­den­tured labour­ers to Trinidad from In­dia. In­di­an Ar­rival Day will be cel­e­brat­ed on Wednes­day. Ac­cord­ing to Deen's re­search, 154 ships made 319 voy­ages from In­dia to Trinidad's shores. He said many labour­ers died on the ships. Each ship ac­com­mo­dat­ed up to 500 pas­sen­gers. How­ev­er, the fa­mous Fa­tel Raza­ck,the first ship to bring in­den­tured labour­ers from In­dia, car­ried 225 on its one and on­ly voy­age to T&T. Deen said ac­cord­ing to Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo, the Fa­tel Raza­ck was ini­tial­ly named the Fath al Raza­ck by a Mus­lim called Yusuf. The ship left In­dia in Feb­ru­ary 1845 and ar­rived in Trinidad on May 30. Bharath, which means In­dia ,was the first name reg­is­tered on the Fa­tel Raza­ck.

Ge­neal­o­gy ad­dict

Deen's eyes lit up as he said, "I'm ad­dict­ed to this stuff." Af­ter study­ing his­to­ry and eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Deen left for Ot­tawa, Cana­da-with a heavy feel­ing that he was leav­ing some­thing be­hind.

He said, "When I left Trinidad I was on­ly 24, my wife and I had just got mar­ried. "Hav­ing left Trinidad, I felt cheat­ed in the sense that I had gone away and giv­en up some­thing that I al­ways want­ed to pur­sue. "I went away as soon as I got my first de­gree, so I had all these re­search skills and said it was time for me to trace my fam­i­ly, but now I've gone away." He said in 1972 he vis­it­ed Trinidad and went to the cel­lar of the Red House, where doc­u­ments were stored, and de­cid­ed to search. Deen and his rel­a­tives be­gan search­ing for in­for­ma­tion on his great-great-grand­fa­ther, Munradin, who was sent to the Har­mo­ny Hall Es­tate. Munradin ar­rived on April 10, 1858 on the El­len­bor­ough. Deen said over the last 25 years he has trained him­self to doc­u­ment in­for­ma­tion. "I love sto­ries. Ge­neal­o­gy, which I learned, is a mix­ture of fam­i­ly sto­ries and doc­u­men­ta­tion. "Now it is be­com­ing ge­net­ic ge­neal­o­gy, where fam­i­lies are trac­ing DNA and so on, but DNA will not give you fam­i­ly his­to­ry." De­spite his re­search over the years, Deen said he was "just scratch­ing the sur­face." He has high hopes that the younger gen­er­a­tion will "take up the slack." Deen said when he was a boy he de­vel­oped an in­ter­est in know­ing his roots. He said: "I got the dri­ve since I was a lit­tle boy. "I re­mem­ber there was this old la­dy who was my great aunt on my fa­ther's side, my fa­ther's pa­ter­nal grand­fa­ther's broth­er's wife...she had a lit­tle par­lour when I was in my ear­ly teens and she was in her 80s, her daugh­ter was about 60 or so, and the two of them were run­ning this par­lour. "I would ask them ques­tions about long ago and they told me sto­ries, some of which I re­mem­bered, and all of that cre­at­ed in­ter­est in me." He said since he start­ed trac­ing fam­i­lies, he has been able to help close to 1,000 peo­ple with their an­ces­tors' em­i­gra­tion pass­es, and about 100 have made links with rel­a­tives in In­dia. As soon as some­one starts to talk about fam­i­ly, his "bar­rage" comes out. He re­called sit­ting with an old woman for five hours on a bus from New York to Syra­cuse talk­ing about fam­i­ly, and re­alised he was not on­ly in­ter­est­ed in In­di­an peo­ple. "She and I talked ge­neal­o­gy whole road, for five hours. She told me about her great grand­par­ents from Ukraine and I found it very fas­ci­nat­ing." He said when a per­son or a fam­i­ly de­cid­ed to trace its roots, it gave old peo­ple a sense of worth, by hav­ing them tell their sto­ries.

Proud of the two PM's

Deen said PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar held his hand tight­ly dur­ing her vis­it to the vil­lage of Bhe­la­pur, in the dis­trict of Buxar, Bi­har state, in Jan­u­ary, when she met her rel­a­tives. She was in­vit­ed by the In­di­an gov­ern­ment for a ten-day state vis­it as chief guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Di­vas di­as­po­ra con­clave in Jaipur. Deen said when he heard the PM was go­ing to In­dia, he de­cid­ed it was an op­por­tune time for him to act on the re­quest she had ade a few years be­fore. He said he con­tact­ed the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Malay Mishra about his find­ings about the PM's roots, which were re­layed to her, and she agreed. Al­though his ser­vices come at a cost, he made it clear that he nev­er charged Pan­day nor Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Deen said he paid his own way to go to In­dia, and ar­rived two weeks be­fore the PM and her del­e­ga­tion. "Ge­neal­o­gy is my ba­by and I can't see that the Prime Min­is­ter is go­ing to In­dia to meet her fam­i­ly, which I have worked out, and I am in Trinidad. I would have been torn if I had stayed." He said the PM's pa­ter­nal grand­fa­ther's fa­ther Ram­lakhan ar­rived in 1889 on a ship called the Vol­ga. He was a Brah­min. Pan­day, who trav­elled to In­dia in Jan­u­ary 1997, found his roots in Lak­sh­man­pur, Aza­m­garh in Ut­tar Pradesh.

How trac­ing is done:

When he's ap­proached by a fam­i­ly, Deen:

does in-depth in­ter­views with the old­est mem­bers;

cre­ates an ar­rival sce­nario;

vis­its the Na­tion­al Archives to look at­doc­u­ments;

ver­i­fies doc­u­ments;

pre­pares a re­port for the fam­i­ly on find­ings and then;

fam­i­ly de­cides on fur­ther plans.


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