The Punjab plains: Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad
Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Sargodha, Wah Cantt. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.
Whose archive this ground was
| Years | Who held it | Whose archive that means |
|---|---|---|
| 1500–1799 | Before registers. | no registers survive Before registers. |
| 1799–1849 | Sikh Empire - the Lahore Durbar | no registers survive Ranjit Singh captured Lahore on 7 July 1799 and was crowned on 12 April 1801. The empire was dissolved by proclamation on 30 March 1849 after the Second Anglo-Sikh War. |
| 1849–1858 | East India Company: the Punjab annexed | National Archives of India · FIBIS — Families in British India Society · FamilySearch The Punjab was annexed on 29 March 1849 (the formal annexation is dated 2 April in one account). A Board of Administration ran it until 1853 and a Chief Commissioner until 1858. |
| 1858–1947 | British Raj: the Punjab Province | FIBIS — Families in British India Society · Findmypast · FamilySearch The Punjab became a Lieutenant-Governor's province in 1859 (some accounts say 1858) and a Governor's province in 1921. The Delhi Territory was added in 1858 and the North-West Frontier Province cut out of it in 1901, so frontier-district records before 1901 sit in the Punjab series. Baptisms, marriages and burials of Christians were returned to London and survive as the India Office ecclesiastical returns (1698-1968) in the British Library. |
| 1947–1955 | Pakistan - West Punjab | FamilySearch · The 1947 Partition Archive Pakistan and India came into being at midnight on 14-15 August 1947 and the Punjab was partitioned on 17 August 1947. The Radcliffe award, published on 17 August 1947, gave Lahore to Pakistan. |
| 1955–2026 | Pakistan - the Punjab province | FamilySearch The One Unit scheme merged the provinces of the west into West Pakistan in 1955. Balochistan was re-created as a province on 1 July 1970. |
The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.
See the whole span, 1500–2026, on the map →
The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.