A Cabral Family Quest

Just before I left for India my paternal Grandmother (aka Nana) reminded me that her Grandparents, aka my great-great Grandparents, were buried in Mumbai.  They were colonial British, he was a cotton trader, and they lived in the very posh Malabar Hills section of Bombay.  I am pretty sure my great Grandmother, whom I remember meeting as a child, Granny Hayhoe, was born in Mumbai as well.

My Nana gave me a few pieces of information about them and I decided to take on a quest to find their graves.  As a starting point, I had their names- Janet (Kidd) Cabral and Edward Gregory Cabral - and an approximate timeframe for when Nana believed her Grandmother passed- February 1910.  Nana also mentioned the name of the church they attended, and that she remembered her mother mentioning something about a Scottish section of a cemetery.  In a city of 20 million and centuries of Colonial British living and dying in the area I felt a bit like I was searching for a needle in a haystack, but it was looking to be a good challenge.  I was prepared to spend hours combing the archives, researching in the state library and scouring cemeteries to find them.  It was a bit of a disappointment at how easy it was to actually find them!

To start- I did a few google searches on both of their names and was able to find an archived Times of India reference to his obituary.  Turns out he passed away on 28 February 1910.  I wasn't able to find any specific references or mention of my great-great Grandmother, but this date was the piece of information that ultimately led me to finding them- more on that in a minute.

While I was able to find evidence that they were in Mumbai there was no reference to where they were buried.  Google to the rescue. I was able to find references to a few Christian cemeteries in the area, one of which stood out as the most likely location for them to have been buried- the Sewri Cemetery in southern Mumbai.  It was established as a Christian cemetery, specifically for British expats in the mid 1860s.

So, off I went into the Mumbai traffic on a Monday morning to try my luck at the Sewri Cemetery.  After a couple hours of battling traffic we finally arrived!

I was met by the cemetery administrator who offered to help me find my great-great Grandparents.  The thing you need to know about India, especially anything related to the government or general social service, is that everything is manual and on paper.  loads and loads of paper.  Thankfully I had the day my great-great grandfather passed as that is how they were able to find his information.  

The first question they asked was for their names, and then for the dates they died.  I was so very thankful to have the specific date because without that we wouldn't have found them (or it would have taken a hell of a lot longer than it did :).  When I told them February, 1910 they pulled down this ginormous, very old and very fragile book and started flipping through pages, very, very gently.....

... and then when he got to a certain page he started looking at line items... 

.. and then we found my great-great grandfather's name, cause of death, who was handling the arrangements and the date.  

After getting a number off the book with his name, they cross referenced another book, confirmed that he was buried with his wife, Janet, and he said they knew where we could find his gravesite.  Have to admit, I was both excited and nervous when he told me they were two minutes away...

So, everything in India is an adventure, and you see things you're not expecting.. even in cemeteries..

A really quick walk to a very old and somewhat overgrown area of the cemetery and they pointed out their gravesite. 

A quick round of weed pulling and clean up and they left me for a few minutes to just be there and take it all in.  I promised Nana that I'd take a handful of photos if I found them... and here they are: 

 

I've always know that my family is from all over the place... Malta and Great Britain mostly, with a bit of Texas, Portugal and yes, even India.  I know that who I am has been greatly impacted by my family's history, accents and even cooking styles :).  Having said that, knowing about extended family history is one thing.. seeing your great-great Grandparent's 100+ year old grave site in a completely foreign country, half way around the world was a bit different.

All in all, a very cool experience.  Looking forward to having tea toast with Nana sometime soon so we can talk about it in person :)