Findmypast

The commercial site findmypast.co.uk has digital images and transcriptions from the India Office Records at the British Library, including church records, which were made available 29 January 2014.

The digital church images are restricted for privacy purposes and the transcription is also limited for privacy purposes, currently (January 2014) as follows:
There are no digital images for baptisms after 1914, nor for marriages after 1929. (To view a copy of these records, you will need to obtain a copy from the British Library, or order the relevant LDS microfilm, see FamilySearch Centres )

You cannot browse through a dataset, in a similar way to reading the original records, or a microfilm, although the addition of this feature is apparently under consideration.

These records may be accessed from the ”Search records” tab on the findmypast website as follows:

• Birth, marriage, death 
& parish records
  • British India Office births & baptisms. As noted above, the images are restricted for privacy purposes, so there are no images available from 1915
  • British India Office deaths & burials
  • British India Office marriages. As noted above, the images are restricted for privacy purposes, so there are no images available from 1930. (Note also FamilySearch has transcriptions to 1935 which may give more information for marriages in the period 1930-1935. It is also possible to request a photocopy of these records , see FamilySearch Centres)
  • British India Office wills & probate. These are thought to be records from the High Court/Supreme Courts at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay and not include any records from the District Courts. See Wills, Administrations, Probate and Inventories
• Education & work 
records
  • British India Office assistant surgeons
  • East India Company & Civil Service pensions
• Military, armed forces & conflict 
records
  • British India Office Army & Navy pensions
• Travel & migration 
records
  • Colonial Service records. These are not digitised India Office Records from the British Library, but relate to India
    • Bengal Civil Service Gradation List 1869
    • East India Company's Commercial Marine Service Pensions List 1793-1833
    • East India Register & Army List 1855
    • Indian Army & Civil Service List 1873
    • India Office List 1933

Searching tips

• Tip 1

Wish you could fill in the parents names and have a list of search results showing all their children? Unfortunately you can't do that, but you can do something else that will produce similar results.

1. Enter the surname only

2. Enter the father’s first name into OPTIONAL WORDS

3. Click 'Search India Office Births and Baptisms'

• Tip 2

Looking for cadet application forms and petitions? You need to search British India Office Births & Baptism as they seem to be in with those and not in with military records.

• Tip 3

Looking for a surname beginning with O ? Quite a few seem to have been data entered as O' . We have come across OLIVER entered as O 'LVER and OGLE as O'LE etc.

• Tip 4

Take the location given in a search result with a pinch of salt. Quite a few index entries give the wrong location for the event. This seems to be down to the transcriber misunderstanding the location written at the top of the page. For instance, some events at Chunar are indexed as Benares, because the original record notes 'Baptisms at Chunar within the district of Benares'. We have found other entries indexed as being at Calcutta, when it really was within the archdeaconry/diocese of Calcutta and some Dehra Dun records indexed as Benares. That is a minor inconvenience as some locations are close, but a reminder to check the wider area.

• Tip 5

Know someone is definitely baptised, married or buried somewhere, but can't find it when searching?

Put an * in first name field ( don't check the variant option)

Put an * in surname field ( don't check the variant option )

Now fill in a place name eg Vepery in the place field

Run search

You will get all the baptisms, marriages or burial's that show the event occurring in Vepery.

• Tip 6

Looking for a surname beginning with D' ? We have found a few D' entered as O' . For example D'Emello has been entered as O'Emello etc.