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Archival family tree · South African Tamil roots

Vallay Ammal

Vilakotai, Madura

Father
Punnavan Pillai
Vilakotai, Madura
Indentured ancestor
Vallay Ammal
female · Vilakotai, Madura
The crossing
Origin
Vilakotai
Madura
Ship
PONGOLA XVI
no. 55934
Year
1894
Arrived
Natal, South Africa
The origin village

Vallay Ammal’s family came from Vilakotai, Madura 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 Vallay Ammal or Punnavan Pillai?
  • Did family ever mention coming from Vilakotai, Madura?
  • Do the dates line up with when your family arrived in Natal? (Record: 1894)
  • Any family memory of a ship named PONGOLA XVI, or a passage to Natal around then?
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Is this your ancestor?

Claim this record to start your family tree — Vallay Ammal and Punnavan Pillai 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 Vilakotai

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

Vallay Ammal 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.