BENGALURU: City-based Federation of Konkani Catholic Associations recently conferred mathematician-writer Michael Lobo with a professional excellence award for his two-decade-long efforts tracing Mangalorean Catholic family trees.
The honour comes as the currently 10,000-page A Genealogical Encyclopedia of Mangalorean Catholic Families, perhaps the first effort of the kind, nears completion. “I think I can probably complete it is about two years,” the 62-year-old told City Express while in the city for the ceremony.
The project started upon his return from his stint at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield Institute of Technology, England, in the mid-1990s. “What started with tracing my family tree became a full-fledged research project,” says the Mangalorean Catholic.
Over the past 20 years, he says, his circles -- relatives included -- have grown wider. “I haven’t kept count, but I must have met thousands of people within and outside Mangaluru.”
He generally starts off by dipping into church records. “Records, in some churches, go as far back as 200 years, letting me trace about four or five generations. On the female lines, it’s often more as women used to get married early,” he says.
But in many churches, records have been destroyed, some by Tipu Sultan, he says.
“And even where they exist, old records are very fragile, the pages almost crumbling at my touch. I’ve talked to a bishop in Mangaluru about the need to archive them, but so far, not much has happened,” says Lobo, who has authored and co-authored 10 other books, including ones on music and chess.
Many well-known families have notes that have helped him along, he says. “So gradually things start falling in place, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.”
But it’s not always possible to get documents to support what families tell you, he says, and admits to having to make “educated guesses”.
Earlier on, when Lobo went on the Commonwealth Scholarship to England, he had, on his mother’s request, tracked down a family his father had lodged with while in the country. “By the time I got there, my father had passed away. All I had was the last name Drake, a few old photographs and some letters,” he says.
Armed with these, he pored over the records in London’s Somerset House. “When I finally found the house, I met one of the unmarried daughters of the family, in her 60s then,” he recalls. “She had known my father as a little girl. She has also passed away now.”
This, he reflects, was possibly an early indication of his inclination towards genealogy. Even while in Bengaluru, he went in search of a family now living in Indiranagar for what is likely to become his magnum opus. “But I’ll have to come back. They were out, and the house was locked,” he says.
The Camelot Collection of Vintage Pop Music
Michael Lobo has also compiled a set of 20 CDs of music as varied as 50 Academy Award winners, teenage pop-music idols, children’s songs, timeless romantic numbers, those sung by brother and sister groups, ones that tell stories, lyrical pleas and farewells, and hits by women singers. All the curated old-time music, under the umbrella title The Camelot Collection of Vintage Pop Music, dates back to a time from the 19th century to the 1960s.
The Encyclopedia
Michael Lobo says his A Genealogical Encyclopedia of Mangalorean Catholic Families, running to over 10,000 pages, is too voluminous to bring out in book form. “I plan to put it up online, and perhaps make provision to update it,” he says. “If people want to be included or someone feels that certain information about the family -- maybe a dispute -- should be removed, I could do that.”
As of now, his work is not in the public domain though he would be happy to share it, if time permits, with anyone who reaches out to him on dr.michael.lobo@gmail.com.