India Office Records

The India Office Records are held in the Asia, Pacific & Africa Collection (APAC) at the British Library. They are the documentary archives of the administration in London of the pre-1947 government of India and are made up from the archives of the East India Company (1600-1858), the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India (1784-1858), the India Office (1858-1947), the Burma Office (1937-1948) and many other related British overseas agencies. Records may be viewed in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room.

If your ancestor was employed as a civilian in any arm of government, such as the police, post office, railways or civil service, then his records are most likely to be kept at the IOR collection. This also applies if your ancestor served in the East India Company Army, but not the British Army.

A number of indexes and transcribed records can be found online on the FIBIS database and other websites. However these are merely a snapshot of the whole collection. Many of the records have also been microfilmed by the LDS and can be made available for examination at local Family History Centres. However, generally, a visit would have to be made to the British Library to obtain the full background to your research.

The National Archives search facility 'Access to Archives' can be used to search the India Office catalogue. The link below goes directly to this search.

Some records are to be digitised and should be available online during 2013 through the commercial site findmypast.co.uk

Visiting the archive

See the British Library article for visiting and access information.

Related articles

• Armies in India- India Office Records at the British Library for details of the Military Department records in the series IOR/L/MIL.

External Links

• British Library Archive search The vast majority of catalogues for the official archives in the India Office Records are now available on the Library’s catalogue for archives and manuscripts. It is strongly advised that you consider a search for your ancestor here as many areas of interest are covered.
• India Office Records and Private Papers including
  • India Office Records: Arrangement of the Records, and List of Classes
    • Finding Aid: British Colonial Policy and Intelligence Files on Asia and the Middle East, c. 1880-1950 IDC Publishers. Original records held in the India Office Records.
• India Office Records: Family History Sources including
  • List of record sources for occupations in India
• British Library - India Office Family Search databasecontains c 300,000 brief biographical records searchable by name.
• The India Office Records catalogue may also be searched through the National Archive’s Discovery catalogue (which has now replaced the previous Access to Archives (A2A) search). Note also entry to British Library Archive search shown above as, in some cases, this will give additional scope.

Discovery Advanced search. In the section “Held by” select “Search other archives”. Type India and the option "British Library: Asian and African Studies (previously Oriental and India Office Library)" will appear. Select this option

Note: Currently (November 2014) some India Office Records are missing from Discovery, and until this problem is fixed, it is recommended that you use the British Library Archive search above.