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Archival family tree · South African Tamil roots

Sooba Naiken

Ottipati, Madura

Father
Veeraragavan
Ottipati, Madura
Indentured ancestor
Sooba Naiken
male · Ottipati, Madura
The crossing
Origin
Ottipati
Madura
Ship
UMVOTI XVIII
no. 35327
Year
1887
Arrived
Natal, South Africa
The origin village

Sooba Naiken’s family came from Ottipati, 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 Sooba Naiken or Veeraragavan?
  • Did family ever mention coming from Ottipati, Madura?
  • Do the dates line up with when your family arrived in Natal? (Record: 1887)
  • Any family memory of a ship named UMVOTI XVIII, or a passage to Natal around then?
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Is this your ancestor?

Claim this record to start your family tree — Sooba Naiken and Veeraragavan 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 Ottipati

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

Sooba Naiken 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.