The Alarakia Family of HongKong

 I keep coming across the name Alarakia  being mentioned in the ownership/transportation of slaves in Zanzibar and which is mentioned in government papers regarding Africa(East Coast) and Arabia.  In January of 1878 a chap named only as Alarakia  was deemed the 'owner' of two male slaves who had been illegally conveyed from mainland Africa to Zanzibar which contravened the 1875 'Treaty' banning slavery. Then in March 1888 it would appear that a Dhow owned by a Alarakia Somji was used in the illegal transportation of  three female slaves and was confiscated by the British government. Alarakia Somji appealed the ruling but was unsuccessful even though it was proven the crime had been committed by the the vessels captain without the owners knowledge. Now much as I abhor the thought of our ancestors being involved in owning or trading slaves it certainly looks like some may have. It is mentioned in the papers that Alarakia Somji had been trading in Zanzibar for fort...

 Its been quite a while since my last post. I seem to have come to a halt with my search for information regarding my ancestors. Other Alarakias though have made the news in various ways.  There is the aforementioned Ebraim Alarakia who travelled frequently back and forth from Galle to Sidney. He seems to have been born in Kutch(Cutch) in 1847 making him four years younger than 2nd Great Grandfather Sewjee. I still wonder but do not yet know if he was a sibling.  According to the Indian Statesman newspaper Ebraim appeared in Insolvency Court in may 1872. By 1881 he was a Lascar(Sailor) travelling the Galle to Sidney route. Then in 1887 he purchased a horse from the British Army Stables in the Bombay region after which his trail goes cold. Jonas Alarakia was listed as an Indian merchant in 1858 Mauritius. It is not stated what he traded in but a report in the West Somerset Free Press dated 30 Oct 1869 and also the Englishmans Overland Mail of West Bengal dated 28 Sept 1869...

 I was rather proud of myself when I came up with a possible origin and meaning for the name Alarakia. Earlier in the blog I talked about the idea it was a Persian name that was made up of various elements and I made it sound very grand indeed. Well what do I know. According to a nineteenth century publication entitled 'Notice sur la Regence de Tunis (Note on the Regency of Tunis)  by J.Henry Dunant the word 'Alarakia' is the name of a small calico hat worn under the 'Chechia'. According to the Collins Dictionary the word 'chechia' a noun meaning 'a cylindrical felt cap with a flat top often with a tassel(similar to a FEZ) and its origin comes from the ancient Persian city of Shash which is now Tashkent in Uzbekistan. This is ancient Silk Road territory.  Now while this may well be true and who am I to argue BUT I prefer my version. Looks like the only thing the two have in common is Persia.  Maybe our Alarakia ancestors took the name because they were r...

 I have tried to get to the bottom of Sewjee's arrival in Hong Kong. To be honest it has been very time consuming and not very successful.  What I do know is that the accessible records available for India during the nineteenth century are almost  entirely about  the Anglo/European colonial population, with some about the Eurasian offspring of such. As far as the indigenous Indian and non colonial population is concerned most of the available records are what is given up by the newspapers of the day. A lot of them concern passenger lists and cargo manifests for the middle east and Europe. If you were an Indian and travelled frequently then you would obviously be either a business man/merchant or independently financially secure. It would appear that the name Allarakia and versions of it often appeared on these lists. In the case of the passenger lists it was usually for passage between Bombay and London. Now the spelling of the name Alarakia has thrown me on more tha...

 Whilst going through the many Newspapers and publications of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries I have begun to notice that not only does the spelling of Alarakia differ in many ways, some individual articles are guilty of that trait when referring more than once to the same person. Furthermore I have noticed names like Allarakiabhoy, Mohamedbuoy and Nanjeebhouy along with names such as Peer Mohamed and Peerbhoy  and began to wonder where any such names might fit in the Alarakia family. As best as I can determine use of the name Peer in South Asian cultures is similar to our use of the term  'senior' whilst the word 'bhoy' apparently is the 'Parsi' equivalent of the Indian 'bhai' for brother. So I was thinking are names such as Allarakhiabhoy and Peerbhoy a way of calling someone junior such as Nanjeebhoy Sazon* being the younger brother to Nanjee Sazon?. Like wise someone with the name Peer Mohamed being the 'senior' or elder of a fam...

  Whist trawling through the Bombay Gazette of  4 May 1866 I notice an article documenting a soldiers diary from his travels in the Persian Gulf. In it he mentions a place called Bushire which I had come across when looking at the hand written Family Tree of the Goolam Hoosein Arab descendants. For those of you who looked at the 'Tree' post yesterday you will notice that I had Mahomed Arab as an Indian National. I am afraid to say I am wrong. In the early part of my research I took the Carl Smith Records version of his M Arab's birth place Abushar (Also spelt the same in his Last Will and Testament) as Ambarsar the colloquial name for Amritsar. It is obvious to me now that the spoken Bushire was misspelt as Abushar. It is easy to see how a translated document does not always reflect the original. So I have emended the original and also yesterdays 'Tree' post to reflect this. Whats more, while he was living in India it is highly possible/probable that he was referred...