Quiet, careful work, on behalf of families across the world.
The Indian Archive exists to do one thing well: bring the family registers of Haridwar within reach of the families they were written for.
To help families read what is already written.
For generations, families travelling to Haridwar and other sacred centres for final rites have shared their names, lineages, and life-events with the family priest or purohit, who recorded them in long handwritten family registers. Those records are still kept today — but locating them, reading them, and translating them is rarely something a family can do from abroad.
Traditions vary by family, region, priest, and record centre. We try to describe the family-register tradition with care.
We close that distance. Each case is led by a researcher who works in person in Haridwar with the panda families who hold the registers, then supported by our office for transcription, translation, review and delivery.
How we work
Respect for the tradition
The panda families are the custodians of these registers. We work with them — never around them — and compensate fairly for their time.
Manual, reviewed work
Transcription and translation are done by trained people, not machines. Every case is reviewed by our office before delivery.
Confidentiality by default
Your case, documents and findings remain private. We only share research with people you nominate.
Haridwar first, by design.
The launch service is focused entirely on Haridwar. As demand grows we will extend our work to other pilgrimage centres where similar registers are kept — but only when we can do so with the same care.