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Firesides Focus on Family History and Temple Work
Frédéric Arokium, Geeta and Arvin Naidu and Gurcharan Gill are on a mission. They traveled to India in January to raise awareness of family history and to encourage people across the country to seek out their ancestors and to prepare for the temple.
The group presented firesides in Chennai, Hyderabad, Rajahmundry and Visakhapatnam.
Frédéric, a research biologist from Sandy, Utah, was born in France but his roots are in India. In 1854 his great-great-grandfather, Arokium (he had no last name and his name has become the family surname), left his village of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu and sailed from Chennai with his parents to Mauritius. His father was an indentured servant contracted to work in the sugar cane fields there.
After the death of his own father two years ago, Frédéric began to wonder about his family history. “We could trace all our family in Mauritius, but the connection to India was lost,” he explained. “I was curious about this great-great-grandfather Arokium, whose first name became my last name, so I asked my aunt for his picture. I had tears in my eyes when I saw it. I took a copy to the National Archives [in Mauritius] to find out where he came from.” That is where Arokium’s quest began.
More than 150 years after his ancestors left, Frédéric returned to India to find out more about them. “Being in Chennai,” he said, “is very emotional for me. This is where all my ancestors boarded ships at different times to come over to a strange land. I believe that it was heart-rending to leave, but they kept moving forward with hope in their hearts. They have sacrificed a lot for us to be where we are today.”
He added, “It is important to know their story to better appreciate my life now and understand the amazing legacy they left to me: courage, hope, hard work, hospitality, strong family values and faith in God.”
Frédéric wants to help others find their Indian roots. For this reason, he has created the Indian Diaspora Genealogy Group on Facebook.
His message to Saints in India is to get a temple recommend; start talking to family members and gather names, old photos and stories; get in touch with a family history consultant; download the FamilySearch app and create an account; enter your ancestors’ names and get their temple work done.
Both Arvind and Geeta Naidu are from Fiji and claim Indian heritage. Despite having lived in the U.S. for many years, they haven’t forgotten their Indian roots and have been to India several times looking for their ancestors.
Geeta explained, “In Fiji we are separated from India. We have lost contact. There are millions of us out there that love India and want to connect to our ancestors.”
Geeta’s grandfather Ibrahim was a Muslim. “He came from the village of Diwari in Haryana in 1911 as an indentured servant to work in the sugar cane fields,” she said. “He became a Christian, married and had four children. When his wife died in childbirth, he left them in an orphanage and returned to India. I am looking for him.”
Geeta continued, “We came to India trying to find our forefathers, but our initial attempts were fruitless, so we changed our strategy. A friend who is a family history consultant suggested that maybe the Lord’s mission for me was to become a ‘heart specialist’ to my people first, and it would lead me to my nana. These inspired words motivated us to turn our focus to our fellow Indian members to help them catch the vision of family history and temple work.”
The Naidus have been inspired by Gurcharan S. Gill, a retired professor of mathematics from Brigham Young University and former and first president of the India Bengaluru Mission from 1993 to 1995.
President Gill is from the village of Dhudike outside the town of Moga in the Punjab. Although he has lived in the United States for 65 years, he is still very connected to his Indian heritage.
As a young man, he lost his older sister Nasib to hepatitis in 1953 and then his youngest brother to bone disease in 1954. “I wondered what happened when people die,” he said, “but found no satisfactory answer.” His questions were answered when, as a young graduate student in California, he came into contact with the Church.
President Gill described his spiritual journey. “In 1955, I went to a lot of churches in Fresno, California, and asked these questions but found no satisfactory answers. The mother of my classmate suggested that I should look for answers at [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. Another LDS classmate invited me to attend a stake conference. I went to the stake conference and heard about the plan of salvation. A miracle indeed! At the stake conference I met the stake and full-time missionaries and they taught me the true gospel. It took eight months of learning. In January of 1956, I was baptized and shortly thereafter I received a wonderful patriarchal blessing. The patriarch promised me that my mission in this life is to help redeem my ancestors.”
“In 1986,” he said, “I went back to India with my parents to visit relatives and found my four generations. I also found tax revenue records for my ancestors who were landowners. Using those records, I went back eight generations.”
Since 2003, he has devoted most of his time to family history. “This is missionary work!” he said.
In 2010, he received permission to photograph tax records in 320 villages where his family was from. “Using those records,” he said, “I have found the names of 250,000 ancestors and relatives and have traced my genealogy back to 2200 B.C.”
Now he spends six to eight hours a day poring over digitized land records researching the Gill Clan. “If you seek, you shall find,” he said.
Peter Bushi, a family history manager for the Church and a counselor in the Hyderabad Stake presidency, acknowledges that for most Indians, finding genealogical records is a challenge. “Start your search by talking with family members,” he advised. “If necessary, make a trip to your ancestral village and gather information from extended family and elders there.”
Moving beyond collective memory, President Bushi points out that a variety of sources for Indian genealogy can be found at familysearch.org, which include church, temple and government records containing information about births, marriages and deaths from the twelfth century to the present.
After the fireside in Chennai, Frédéric talked excitedly with a young woman from the audience. It appears that they have ancestors from the same village in Tamil Nadu. Perhaps her research can help him find another generation of family. They exchanged contact information.
“This is a labor of love,” Frédéric said. “After all they have done for me, this is the least I can do for them.”