9/ In this log book are details of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, adoptions, disownings and much, much more. Each entry even includes current whereabouts of major family members
THIS specific book goes ALL THE WAY back to the early 1700s!! That's almost 300 freaking years!
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10/ Each entry confirms who is still living or dead, their titles and occupations. I could go back to the 1800s and find ancestors that were village chiefs or those that were in military service.
It had the entry of my birth. My dad's birth. Even his dad's birth!
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11/Did I mention the freaking book is 300 years old!? Mind you it's neither the oldest book nor the only 1. There's books for Kapoors, Malhotras, Khannas, Chopras, etc.
On some Game of Thrones sh*t, these major Punjabi families intermarried for provincial alliances for centuries
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12/ Which begs the question, how has THIS book survived for THREE CENTURIES. Not in a museum, not as a relic. Just a 300 year old log book. This is where it gets even more interesting.
Turns out, our family's ancestoral history has been managed, for centuries, by ANOTHER family.
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13/ This book was started by this guy's ancestor (so the tale goes) and was passed down like a family business from father to son over generations!
If a son decides he doesn't want to be in the family business, the family can sell the rights to OUR book to another pundit & so on
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14/ Our book, while never having been digitized, has been duplicated by hand several times both for redundancy and to create a "traveling copy". Only thing missing are original signatures.
Those sigs make the OG book admissable in a court of law, in inheritance disputes for ex.
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15/ Heres the kicker: These pundits know our family trees better than even we in our family do. I tried to test that.
"You've got my paternal line Kapoors... But what about my Dadi's (Dad's Mom)"
Dude looks at this red book and goes - "Ah, the Khannas. Where shall I start?"
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16/ This genealogical magician proceeds to rattle off my Dadi's entire family tree, her parents, her brothers, their kids, where those kids live, how many have kids of their own!
In awe of his craft, we make a small "donation" to thank him for his record keeping & off we went 🤑
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17/ As a kid, I was always jealous of my classmates who could find their ancestors names in the log book at
Personally, I think this centuries old History of the Kapoor family puts the Ellis Island signature book to shame.
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18/ I suppose even with our family's diaspora, whether planned or coerced, it's nice to know that a critical piece of my family's history resides in this holy place, whenever I'd like to come here and visit my past.
/End.
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