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Archival family tree · South African Tamil roots

Padmanaba Pillay

Trivandrum, Tinnevelly

Father
Mahadeva Pillay
Trivandrum, Tinnevelly
Indentured ancestor
Padmanaba Pillay
male · Trivandrum, Tinnevelly
The crossing
Origin
Trivandrum
Tinnevelly
Ship
CONGELLA XIX
no. 58988
Year
1895
Arrived
Natal, South Africa
The origin village

Padmanaba Pillay’s family came from Trivandrum, Tinnevelly district. Living relatives may still be there — a voter-roll lookup can name them, and the modern village page shows land records and families we already track.

Verify with your elders

Colonial ship-clerks often mangled Tamil names. Before treating this as your ancestor, ask the oldest person in your family:

  • Was there a great-great-grandfather named Padmanaba Pillay or Mahadeva Pillay?
  • Did family ever mention coming from Trivandrum, Tinnevelly?
  • Do the dates line up with when your family arrived in Natal? (Record: 1895)
  • Any family memory of a ship named CONGELLA XIX, or a passage to Natal around then?
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Is this your ancestor?

Claim this record to start your family tree — Padmanaba Pillay and Mahadeva Pillay are added instantly, ready for you to extend with living relatives.

This is my family — build my tree

Two paths: build your tree if this is your ancestor, or submit evidence to help a South African family verify their village link. See the Village Verification Project.

More families from Trivandrum

Source: theiii.in Natal indenture register (digitised ship record). Names and places are the colonial spellings as recorded; verify against family memory before treating a lineage as certain.

Privacy — no living person’s details are ever shown in public

Padmanaba Pillay appears here only because this is a historical indenture record (1860–1911) — the person named sailed over a century ago. Family trees, voter matches and any living-relative data sit behind a login and are visible only to the account owner they belong to.