Princely states

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The Princely, Native or Indian States are those States in India which remained nominally under the control of their traditional or hereditary rulers.

By treaty, the Indian Government maintained Army cantonments in many of these States. These cantonments appear to have been under direct British control, as part of one of the Bengal, Madras or Bombay Presidencies, and their records were part of the Presidency records.

In contrast, Railway Colonies located in Princely States do not appear to have been under British control, and their records were not part of the British records.

List of main states at Independence

Records

British Library APAC records

  • Baptisms, Marriages and Burials - Indian (Princely) States 1890-1946, N/5, which consists of two volumes only. The index to these records is a single, slim volume.

They are original records and the forms have been completed in a variety of different cramped handwriting and writing materials, making many of them very difficult to read. However, the amount of information provided, particularly in the case of death, is often considerably more detailed than that found in the usual presidency returns. These records are identified in the general Z/N series of indexes. There is also a name and date index from 1923-1950 to be found on LDS film 498603; and the entire set of records is contained on two films 527422 and 527423.

These records appear to be on the LDS Family Search website.

These records, including images, are also available online on the pay website findmypast.

Also see

External Links

Historical books online

Central India, 2nd edition 1899, Rajputana 2nd edition 1899, Southern India (Hyderabad) 2nd edition 1900.
For possible additional volumes Archive.org