Records can be maintained better if preserved digitally.”Jha has been maintaining handwritten records of family members of the deceased since the age of 19. A recent dip in footfall at Haridwar to perform last rites has prompted pandas like Jha to digitise death records. “Over the years, the custom of visiting Haridwar to update family ledgers is slowly dying,” says Mahendra Kumar, a panda who has been maintaining records since the 1980s. Aniruddha, for instance, received the family scrolls of Bhagalpur, and from parts of Punjab and Haryana after his father decided to divide his possessions among his sons. A few pandas have even begun digitising records, and have thrown the old scrolls into the Ganga.”According to the Genealogical Society of Utah, Hindu family records dating back to 1194 were once maintained by these Haridwar genealogists.

Source: dna October 24, 2016 02:15 UTC