I am a postgraduate student from London, UK, in India to conduct a university research project on the Parsi community in Bombay. My interest in this project is fuelled by a personal desire to find out more about Parsi culture and heritage, an interest that I developed some time ago after discovering that my own great-great-grandfather was a Parsi.
Ratanjee; family photo of his three granddaughters
I know very little about this distant ancestor, apart from the fact that his name was Ratanjee and that he was born around the 1840s. My family tells me that he was a merchant trader who operated between Bombay and London in the late 19th century and may have been relatively successful and well-known, since his name was apparently included in Who’s Who (ukwhoswho.com), a biographical publication listing noteworthy individuals which has been published annually since 1849. While in London, Ratanjee had children with a British woman and one of his grand-daughters, Eva Helen Ballard, was my paternal grandmother.
My grandmother has now passed away, but in the past I had often asked her about her grandfather whose photo she kept at the bottom of a tin box. She didn’t seem to recall much, but one of the memories she shared was that when she met him she was required to wear her smartest clothes and ensure that she was well-behaved!
I have very little information about Ratanjee and wonder if any of your readers might have any information about him or his family. I would be really pleased if they could get in touch.
This is the only photograph I have of Ratanjee and there is also one of his three grand-daughters. My grandmother is the one sitting on the right; her sister, my Aunt Dorrie, is standing at the back on the right-hand side of the photo, and her Indian heritage is quite clear from her appearance.