DUTCH ARCHIVES: PLEASURES OF DISCOVERY Do you have an ancestor who lived in the south-west of Sri Lanka two-hundred and fifty years ago? Chances are you may find him or her in unique documents kept at the Sri Lanka National Archives. Referred to as Thombos, they are land registers that were maintained by the Dutch--or rather the VOC or Dutch East India Company--when they ruled parts of Sri Lanka from 1638 to 1796. It is not a word that is unfamiliar to Sri Lankans. In Sinhalese, digging up family histories is referred to as turning the pages of the thombo. Or on making a passionate claim to a concept or item of interest, you could be asked if you have a thombo for it. In fact, the thombos were essentially about ownership as its modern-day use suggests. The Dutch were keen on recording exactly who owned what and how much. This exercise led to more than four hundred volumes that record details of families and their property from the coastal districts of Negombo to Galle. Each individual of a family group who owned land in that area in the eighteenth century was diligently recorded by the thombo-keeper. Their age, occupation and property was written down. Extents of rice fields were given as measurements of the harvest, and that of estates and small gardens as the number of trees such as coconut, jak and arecanut. Check out the Thombo Index on the website of the Sri Lanka National Archives--who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find. But bear in mind, that index is only of the first-mentioned person in a family group. Also, the online version does not include the thombos of Galle. Following a practice started under Dutch rule and continuing into British rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, translated extracts from the volumes can be obtained from the archives at a nominal fee. With thanks to Ms Nadeera Rupesinghe
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 04:30:01 +0000