The Madras Presidency, where it appears my great great grandfather, wives and children, lived much of their time in India, covered a number of current Indian States. Madras city is now known as Chennai, and some of my family indeed lived there. But other places appear on various baptism certificates of my family. Masulipatnam – which appears to me to be north of Madras city, on the coast. Secunderabad – which my terrible geography currently suggests is north west of Madras/Chennai and I am yet to understand how it came under Madras Presidency. Madura – seems south of Madras/Chennai. As a starting point for researching the geography of the area, I am listing some Wikipedia topics and google maps of interest. I am also listing some cultural background links in an attempt to look at what ethnic and religious background may apply to my native relatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Madras_Presidency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madras_Presidency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisions_of_Madras_Presidency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurai
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Machilipatnam&redirect=no
(search google – map of madras presidency)
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poyntz/India/maps.html#madras_loc
book – sketches in india – hyderabad and secunderabad 1862 https://archive.org/stream/sketchesinindia00scotgoog#page/n9/mode/2up
coins of British India http://www.anwarscoincollection.com/category/the-english/east-india-company-calcutta-bombay-madras-presidency/
Davadian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian
Tamil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_people
Tamil Nadu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Tamil_Nadu