Learn how to trace your Tamil ancestry.

TamizhConnect articles are written for people who want to do more than collect names. We focus on practical steps: how to preserve family memories, how to avoid common record mistakes, and how to connect places, dates, and relationships into a story that makes sense for Tamil families across villages and diaspora.

If you are starting from scratch, begin with what is easiest to verify: your parents and grandparents, their known home villages, and the major migration steps (for example: village-to-city, India-to-Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka-to-UK, or India-to-Malaysia/Gulf). Then use the articles here to fill gaps carefully instead of guessing. A clean timeline with “unknown” placeholders is better than a confident but wrong tree.

Many posts include checklists for handling Tamil initials, matching spellings across scripts (Tamil and English), and interpreting public records like voter lists, land documents, temple records, and community archives. When you see a “possible match”, treat it like evidence: compare dates, look for consistent place patterns, and confirm using multiple sources before you merge people together.

This blog is also bilingual. Several articles have both an English and a Tamil version. If you are sharing research with relatives, the Tamil versions can be easier to discuss on calls, WhatsApp, and family group chats. Look for the language badge on each article and the cross-links inside a post.

Useful starting paths (choose one, finish it, then move to the next):

• Decode names and initials first, so you don’t lose identity in Western forms.
• Build a migration timeline, then attach documents as you find them.
• Focus on places: origin village, temple town, district, and the overseas settlement path.
• Learn record verification basics before accepting anything as “proof”.

When you are ready to turn reading into action, create a free account and start a private family tree. Add only consented information for living relatives, invite collaborators when needed, and keep sensitive details hidden when you share.

If you want to explore data visually without saving anything, use our Family Tree Tools to paste a consented JSON tree and preview a simple visualization. For step-by-step walkthroughs, visit the How TamizhConnect Works.

As you read, try to turn each post into a small action in your tree. For example: add one missing place, attach one document, or write one short note about “how we know this” for a person. Those small steps compound quickly and make it much easier for relatives to trust (and contribute to) your family history.

Before you accept a new match, sanity-check these basics:

• Do the dates make sense across generations (and across spouses)?
• Do places follow a realistic migration path for that period?
• Are you mixing two different people with the same initials or common names?
• Can you confirm the connection with at least one additional source (photo, oral note, record, or relative)?

If you are working with scans or hard-to-read text, the Inference tools can help extract and structure information before you add it to your tree.

If you prefer a simple starting point, pick one article, take notes on three “anchor facts” (a village, a full name, and an approximate year), and update your tree with just those anchors. Once anchors are stable, it becomes much easier to expand confidently without creating duplicates.