sv
Hi Sanjay
Thanks very much for your good wishes. How are you getting on with your father's application? He was still putting his documents together last time you and I spoke.) That's another joyful job in this wretched game!
Sanjay, I know you are from India, but it is just possible that you might be able to help me out with this query:
My Mum was born in Sri Lanka in 1920. Her father was a British tea-planter out there. Her mother was also British but born in India. My great-grandfather planted either tea or coffee in India (not sure which) and he was Scottish, born in Scotland. I guess the planters married their daughters off to other planters or something!
Anyhow, Mum and her sibings all say that their births were never registered anywhere, none of them have birth certificates and none of them know why. DIMA want a statutory declaration from my mother, giving the full names, dates of birth and nationalites of both of her parents. We have a copy of my grandfather's birth certificate, because he was borm in England, so we are OK on his details. Mum and her siblings say that Mum's mother never had a birth certificate because they didn't exist in India in 1887 when she was born there. Is that right, do you reckon?
Do you think it may have been similar in Sri Lanka in 1920 and that there simply wasn't a system for registering births out there then? I started a thread about it earlier and two migration agents have very kindly given me some really good clues about people to ask, but you might have some good ideas about this too, I imagine. (Also, expect similar hbuttle if your father hasn't got a birth cert, I suppose!)
Thanks very much
Gill
