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Zion Church
Register and Census
The oldest Protestant church in
India is the Zion church in Tranquebar. It was constructed in 1701,
mainly for the use of Europeans. (A Church for the local people, the
New Jerusalem Church, would be constructed by Ziegenbalg, and
inaugurated
in 1716). The Zion church register contains a list of baptisms,
confirmations, marriages and deaths between 1767 and 1845. All earlier
records are assumed destroyed. The original register is to be found in
the Tamilnadu Archives in Chennai. During early 20th century, Heiberg
transcribed the contents into typed pages. Even during his time, many
entries were badly damaged. A microfilm of the register is available at
the National Archives in Copenhagen. I have transcribed it once again
as a pdf file. I have also rearranged the register chronologically with
births, confirmations, marriages and deaths for each year.
In
addition, two census were made in Tranquebar in 1790 and in 1835.
Partial transcriptions of these census records are included. The Zion
Church Register and the two census have been published together as a
free ebook under saxo.com (http://www.saxo.com/dk/tranquebar-registers_pdf_9788740471465)
The New Jerusalem Church Register covering the period 1707-1888 is also
available. Initially it is in German, and from the English period, the
contents are in English. This can be seen at
https://www.sa.dk/content/dk/ao-forside/find_kirkeboger. This site is
under the National Archives in Copenhagen. Under "Vælg amt", choose *;
under "Vælg herred", choose *; under "Vælg Sogn", choose: Kol.
Trankebar: Jerusalem.
Zion Church Register
and Census
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