EXPLANATION FOR THE FAMILY CHART OF AMMA

It is felt necessary to provide an explanation (as given below) to the ‘Family Chart’ of Amma given in the adjacent page, for the benefit of the devotee children of Amma, particularly, the non-Telugu speaking ones within the country and overseas.

1. This ‘Family Chart’ is prepared from the available sources of information. The chart presented here is from the paternal side of Amma though, in an indirect way, it also represents the one from the maternal side as well.
2. As may be seen, the information available is limited to only the previous 3 (4?) generations. It is to be noted here that the details presented are restricted to Amma’s ancestry and the detail regarding others in the chart is omitted as it is not relevant to our present context.
3. In Andhra Pradesh (AP), generally the male progeny assumes the surname (family name or the ‘Last name’ as followed in the West) of his father, while the female progeny gets the surname of her husband on being married.
4. Again here, in this state, the Surname (Family name or Last name) precedes the actual name (First name).
5. Child marriages were quite in vogue in AP in the olden days even as late as the 1960s.
6. Consanguineous marriages were also quite common in AP, particularly among the Brahmin community of the coastal districts of the state. Thus, as may be seen from the chart, Rangamma (*), the second daughter of Chandramouli Venkata Subba Rao was married to Mannava Sitapati (2), her grand uncle Mannava Venkaiah’s (2) son. Similarly, Punnamma (Annapurnamma), the eldest daughter of Mannava Venkaiah (2) was married to Chandramouli Chidambara Rao (+), Mannava Venkaiah’s (2) nephew. In our present context, Anasuya Devi (Amma) was married to Nageswara Rao (Nanna garu), her maternal aunt Kanakamma’s son.
7. Men used to marry even thrice, depending on the circumstances and in the event of the 1st and 2nd wives being deceased. Thus, Mannava Venkaiah, Amma’s paternal grandfather had 3 wives in succession. Similarly, Amma’s father Mannava Sitapathi married a second time on the demise of Rangamma.
8. In the chart, numbers are given against some names to avoid confusion. Thus, Amba Rao(1) & Amba Rao(2) belonged to two successive generations..
9. The practice in the state of AP in the olden days was to give the first name of the (paternal) grandfather to the first grandson of each of the male progeny. Thus, as may be seen from the chart, Mannava Venkaiah’s (1) grandson bears the name Venkaiah along with the surname ‘Mannava’. Similarly, Mannava Sitapathi’s (1) grandson (i.e., son of Mannava Venkaiah(2)) is given the name Sitapati. However, this may not hold in the case of female progeny.
10. Finally, one point that may need mention here is that among the four daughters of Mannava Sitapati (1), namely, Mangamma, Rajamma, Narasamma and Maridamma, only Narasamma had children, while Maridamma was a widow from her childhood.