Nass­er Khan

Ge­neal­o­gy is de­fined as the study of fam­i­lies and the trac­ing of their lin­eages and his­to­ry. Ge­neal­o­gists use oral tra­di­tions, his­tor­i­cal records, ge­net­ic analy­sis and oth­er records to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion about a fam­i­ly. The re­sults are of­ten dis­played in charts or writ­ten as nar­ra­tives.

De­scrib­ing him­self as for­ev­er a stu­dent–a ge­og­ra­phy teacher by pro­fes­sion for 36 years up to his re­tire­ment in 2006, and an avid as­tronomer–67-year-old Shamshu Deen es­tab­lished him­self as a ge­neal­o­gist in 1994 when he pub­lished his first book Solv­ing East In­di­an Roots in Trinidad, a de­tailed ac­count of his and his wife's fam­i­ly trees.

While he has ded­i­cat­ed his ef­forts to the track­ing down of records of East In­di­an im­mi­grants in the na­tion­al archives of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Deen says that at the Na­tion­al Archives in Port-of-Spain there is a list called T71 which con­tains 65,000 African slaves reg­is­tered be­tween 1814 and 1834 in Trinidad.

The tribes to which these Africans be­longed are al­so list­ed. There­fore, peo­ple of African ori­gin in T&T can trace their an­ces­tries back to these lists us­ing fam­i­ly sto­ries and births, deaths and mar­riages' reg­is­ters at the Reg­is­ter Gen­er­al's of­fice. This civ­il reg­is­tra­tion was start­ed in Trinidad in 1848 and in­for­ma­tion be­fore that could be re­searched at the RC & AC church records to take us to the T71 lists.

Much of Deen's pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion came from his moth­er, who he says had a very good mem­o­ry about peo­ple's births and dates. He al­so en­joys talk­ing to the el­ders who are chock-filled with valu­able in­for­ma­tion if on­ly they would be asked and record­ed be­fore pass­ing on. Build­ing on the ini­tial in­for­ma­tion gath­ered, Deen start­ed look­ing for ev­i­dence to con­firm the sto­ries about var­i­ous rel­a­tives from In­dia. He found his first doc­u­ment in 1972 with the name of the in­den­tured im­mi­grant, Mo­hammed Mook­ti, who ar­rived in Trinidad in 1852 and from whom the Deen clan in Trinidad de­scend­ed. Now, some 160 years lat­er, Deen has tracked 12,000 peo­ple to whom he is ge­net­i­cal­ly re­lat­ed. "Ge­neal­o­gy is akin to de­tec­tive work," he de­clares, "but some­times you dis­cov­er some pre­vi­ous­ly hid­den or un­known fam­i­ly se­crets such as the great-great-grand­fa­ther who left his wife for her niece!"

He has been to In­dia to do re­search, spon­sored by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia through its em­bassy in Trinidad, the re­sult of which was his 1998 pub­li­ca­tion of his sec­ond book, Lin­eages and Link­ages: Solv­ing Trinidad roots in In­dia. Among those whom he has as­sist­ed in find­ing their roots in In­dia are for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He has been ap­point­ed by Un­esco to be part of the Mem­o­ry of the World pro­gramme to save in­den­tured In­di­an Doc­u­ments in the West In­dies and the Di­as­po­ra. He now serves as mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Her­itage Trust Coun­cil, chair­man of the Nel­son Is­land Restora­tion Com­mit­tee, mem­ber on the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Her­itage Tourism, and is re­search­ing at UTT in the cre­ation of a Na­tion­al Ge­nealog­i­cal Data­base.Deen is the hold­er of the Hum­ming Bird Gold Medal which he was award­ed in 1997.

Q: When and where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: Born in Preysal Vil­lage and grew up in Gas­par­il­lo.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion?

I at­tend­ed Gas­par­il­lo Gov­ern­ment, San Fer­nan­do TML and Na­pari­ma Col­lege. I re­ceived my ed­u­ca­tion up to the BA lev­el in Trinidad at UWI and a Mas­ters in Ed­u­ca­tion in Cana­da.

How did you get in­to your line of work?

I got in­to fam­i­ly roots due to my deep in­ter­est in lis­ten­ing to el­ders re­call their his­to­ry and an­ces­tries. Al­so, be­cause of my love for old doc­u­ments, news­pa­pers and archives in gen­er­al...these two com­po­nents are es­sen­tial to be­ing a ge­neal­o­gist.

Do you have any favourite sto­ries from your cur­rent work life?

Some of my favourite sto­ries: see­ing a whole In­dia vil­lage weep when they re­alised some­one had rel­a­tives abroad; unit­ing an adopt­ed girl, now a young woman, with her bi­o­log­i­cal moth­er; wit­ness­ing two prime min­is­ters meet their In­dia rel­a­tives af­ter three gen­er­a­tions, and ac­tu­al­ly los­ing their spec­ta­cles in the emo­tion­al em­braces.

How do you best de­scribe the type of work you do?

My work is re­al­ly to try to link fam­i­lies across the world af­ter they have been sep­a­rat­ed for a hun­dred and more years.

What are a cou­ple of your most mem­o­rable roots trac­ings?

One of my favourites was find­ing my own rel­a­tives (af­ter weeks of re­search among doc­u­ments) in In­dia and want­i­ng to run up and kiss the red-dyed fin­gers of my 18-year-old Jo­la­ha (weavers) rel­a­tive (from our Preysal lin­eage) as he sat at his mill in Za­hurabad vil­lage, Ghazipur, Ut­tar Pradesh. Al­so I re­mem­ber my old Char­lieville rel­a­tive who had not spo­ken for a month but opened up to me of­fer­ing a sto­ry which be­came the so­lu­tion of the ar­rival of my Aza­m­garh rel­a­tives aboard the SS British Em­pire in 1875.

The one place you would like to vis­it and why?

I will like to use in­for­ma­tion from the T71 lists of African Slaves to Trinidad 1814-1834 to try and find present day rel­a­tives for peo­ples of African de­scent in T&T.

If you had to in­ter­view some­one from T&T who you did not know and had to ask just one ques­tion, who would it be and what would be the one ques­tion?

Hope you will let me, like John Keats, al­low my fan­cy to roam and in­ter­view my great, great grand­fa­ther Munradeen, who died in 1889, and ask him about the In­di­an vil­lage from which he came in 1858, as that in­fo was on­ly put on the Em­i­gra­tion Pass­es from 1859. In that way I can seek out rel­a­tives from that line of my fam­i­ly.

Who was your hero or "idol" grow­ing up (fic­tion­al or re­al or both) and why?

My hero was the box­er Muham­mad Ali who, as the song said of him, learned to de­pend on him­self and to do things oth­ers felt were not in tune with the rest of pre­vail­ing thought. In some ways my open­ing for­ays in­to ge­neal­o­gy were frowned up­on by some in­tel­lec­tu­als, friends and rel­a­tives but I think that has changed now.

Which of your work(s) do you rate as the most sat­is­fy­ing and mem­o­rable?

My first book, Solv­ing East In­di­an Roots in Trinidad (1994), saw the out­pour­ing of my fam­i­ly his­to­ries and the method­olo­gies I de­vel­oped till then. My oth­ers were sat­is­fy­ing to me too as were some of the doc­u­men­taries and ar­ti­cles I worked on, but I guess the be­gin­ning is al­ways trea­sured most.

What up­com­ing plans or events do you have in store?

Over the past 20 years I have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of be­ing part of fam­i­ly re­unions among my blood rel­a­tives. Five such re­unions were held and re­peat­ed over the years. On­ly two years ago I was able to find the ar­rival doc­u­ments of my wife's pa­ter­nal and ma­ter­nal an­ces­tors. On next East­er Sun­day, March 31, there will be a re-en­act­ment of this ar­rival when rel­a­tives will gath­er to wel­come these an­ces­tors to our shores. On Wednes­day April 3, a Cho­ka Fest will cel­e­brate their tra­di­tion­al method of cook­ing when sev­er­al chokas will form the ba­sis of a meal ac­com­pa­nied by chul­ha-cooked saa­da roti es­pe­cial­ly by the hun­dreds of rel­a­tives from abroad. Then on Sun­day April 7, the Ar­rival An­niver­sary will be com­mem­o­rat­ed in fine style with a grand ban­quet to be held at JR &D Com­plex, Princes Town, not far from the Craig­nish Es­tate to which these an­ces­tors were in­den­tured from 1869 to 1871.

Sev­er­al ac­tiv­i­ties are planned for that event in­clud­ing a fash­ion show of long ago, fam­i­ly col­lages, ar­ti­fact dis­plays and greet­ings from promi­nent peo­ple. There is al­so an In­di­an ar­rival pro­gramme in mid May to be staged at Nel­son Is­land where I am the chair­man of the restora­tion com­mit­tee. Of course I am al­so ad­vo­cat­ing for 2014 to be de­clared as the Year of Fam­i­ly Re­unions so that as many fam­i­lies as pos­si­ble will cel­e­brate their an­ces­tors and all rel­a­tives at home and abroad.For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on trac­ing your roots con­tact Shamshu Deen at 655-2911; 336-8777 or shamshu@tstt.net.tt