About us
A river without a source, a tree without roots
Vansh Lekha — वंश लेखा, the written record of a lineage — exists because families forget faster than they expect. Most of us can name our grandparents. Very few can name theirs, or say which village the family came from, or what our great-grandmother did with her days.
Why we built it
In most Indian families the lineage lived in someone’s memory — an uncle who knew every cousin, a family register kept by a pandit at the ancestral town. When that person goes, the record goes with them. What is left is a shoebox of photographs nobody can put names to.
Vansh Lekha is a place to write it down while it is still known. You start with yourself, add your parents and your children, and fill in what you have. A cousin in another city does the same. When you exchange family IDs, the two trees become one — and the record is suddenly larger than what either of you remembered alone.
What it holds
Against every person the record keeps their birth and, where it applies, their passing; their marriage; their native place down to the taluka and village; their religion, caste, sub-caste, gotra and kuldevi; their mother tongue and their tirth place; their education and occupation; photographs; and a biography in your own words.
None of it is compulsory. A tree with nothing but names is still worth more than a tree that was never made.
Start with the four people you know best
Your mother, your father, your partner, your child. The rest of the tree grows out from there.