Ceylon

Ceylon, to the South East of Madras Presidency

"Ceylon, a large island and British colony in the Indian Ocean, separated on the N.W. from India by the Gulf of Manaar and Palk Strait. It lies between 5° 55' and 9° 51' N. and between 79° 41' and 81° 54' E. Its extreme length from north to south is 2 712 m.; its greatest width is 1371 m.; and its area amounts to 25,481 sq. m., or about five-sixths of that of Ireland. In its general outline the island resembles a pear, the apex of which points towards the north." The island is now called Sri Lanka.

History

The Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century, followed by the Dutch in the 17th Century with the British, as usual, arriving late - 1796 - when the British East India Company established control. In 1802 Ceylon became a British Crown Colony. The island was unified in 1815 (previously there had been three kingdoms) and the island finally gained its independence in 1947.

Military actions

• War against Dutch in Ceylon -1795-96
• 1st Kandyan War - 1803-05
• 2nd Kandyan War - 1815
• 3rd Kandyan War (Uva Rebellion) - 1817-18

Records

Except for the few short years when the East India Company was in control (1796-1802) records for Ceylon will not be found in the India Office Records at the British Library, but at The National Archives at Kew. For example, the description and succession books of the Ceylon Rifles covering years 1809-1872 are held under reference W025/638-641 (these include officers services) and reference WO23/158 finds the admission books for rhe Ceylon Rifles and Gun Lascars for the period May 1868-Sept 1876.

Some information may be obtained by writing to Registrar General's Office, New Secretariat, Maligawatta, Colombo 10, Sri Lanka.

LDS Records

For general details about LDS records, including microfilms, refer IGI.

Sri Lanka, Colombo District Dutch Reformed Church Records 1677-1990 are available with images online on the LDS pilot search site, and also on the LDS beta site. Note, the webpage takes some time to load.

The LDS Library Catalogue contains these entries for keyword search Sri Lanka Church and Sri Lanka Registrar.

The North Parramatta Family History Centre in Sydney, Australia has the detailed indexes to the Baptisms and Marriages at the Dutch Reformed Church at Wolfendaal, Colombo, up to 1897. These are not LDS microfilms but are spiral bound photocopies made from the journals and indexes at Victor Melder's Sri Lankan Library in Melbourne.

External links

• Ceylon Wikipedia
• The Virtual Library of Sri Lanka has a section "History", which in turn has a section "Colonial History, The British in Lanka (1796-1948)"
• Publications by Kabristan Archives-Old Irish and Indian Graveyards relating to Ceylon are
  • Graveyards In Ceylon by Eileen Hewson
    • Colombo Volume I , Nuwara Eliya Volume II, Tea Country Volume III, Kandy Region Volume IV, South & West Volume V
  • Protestant Marriages Nuwara Eliya Ceylon by Eileen Hewson
• Under a Tropical Sun (Macquarie University) covers 1796-1821. Includes the historical background and contemporary accounts of the Officers of the 73rd Regiment of Foot (and their families) in Ceylon 1814-21.
• History of Tea in Ceylon
• Sri Lanka Genealogy Website including
  • Family Tree Data of Sri Lankan Communities-Burgher Family Genealogy including
    • Genealogical Charts of Sri Lankan Burgher Families Families with Portuguese, Dutch & British Colonial ancestry
    • Genealogy information from the Journals of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon
  • links to the Rootsweb Sri Lanka Mailing List, to Rootsweb Sri Lanka Message Board and to GenForum Sri Lanka Message Board

Historical books online

• The Ceylon Gazetteer; containing an accurate account of the districts, provinces, cities, towns, principal villages, harbours, rivers, lakes &c. of the Island of Ceylon, together with sketches of the manners, customs, institutions, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, revenues, population, castes, religion, history of its various inhabitants 1834 Google Books
• A Gazetteer of the Central Province of Ceylon (excluding Walapane) by Archibald Campbell Lawrie Archive.org
  • Volume 1, A-K 1896, Volume 2, L-Z 1898
• List of inscriptions on tombstones and monuments in Ceylon, of historical or local interest, with an obituary of persons uncommemorated by J Penry Lewis 1913 Archive.org
• Coffee planting in Southern India and Ceylon by ECP Hull 1877 Archive.org