If any of your ancestors served in the royal court, royal household, government, or military during the reigns of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-1896) or Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1896-1907), then you might find them listed in one of Etemad al-Saltaneh’s (اعتمادالسلطنه) government almanacs (سالنامه). This is the only online location to have this many of the almanacs in one place.*
Mohammad Hasan Khan Moqaddam Maraqe’i “Etemad al-Saltaneh” (1843-1896) was a statesman, scholar, and author during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (َAbbas Amanat, EʿTEMĀD-AL-SALṬANA, MOḤAMMAD-ḤASAN KHAN MOQADDAM MARĀḠAʾĪ, Encyclopedia Iranica). He was educated at the famous Dar al-Fonun college in Tehran as part of its first class (Id.). After a career in the bureaucracy, military, and the royal household, he became director of the Government Press Bureau (ادارۀ روزنامجات دولتی) in 1287 LH (1870/1) and the Government Translation Bureau (دارالترجمه خاصۀ دولتی) in 1288 LH (1871/2) (Id.).
In his capacity as director of the press and translation bureaus, Etemad al-Saltaneh oversaw the publication of numerous periodicals, travelogues, translations, histories, geographies, and encyclopedias (Id.). Almost annually between 1290 LH (1873/4) and 1313 LH (1895/6), one volume would contain an appendix with a government almanac. These almanacs provided the names of the Qajar family and tribal khans, as well as members of the royal household staff, royal court, bureaucracy, provincial administrations, and military for the calendar year (Assef Ashraf).
Below is a list of almanacs published under Etemad al-Saltaneh’s supervision (Sources: سالنامه نگاری در ایران: سالگشت آغاز انتشار سالنامه در ایران ; نخستین سالنامه ایران). The Persian titles directly link to the PDFs of the appendices. The source column indicates where the PDF was obtained.
After Etemad al-Saltaneh’s death in 1313 LH (1896), his brother’s son, Mirza Mohammad Bagher, continued publishing almanacs for a couple years (نخستین سالنامه ایران). Afterwards, almanacs continued to be published as appendices to subsequent volumes of Nāme-ye dāneshvarān-e Nāseri (نامۀ دانشوران ناصری) (Id.). Below are these later Qajar era almanacs.
| تاریخ سلاطین ساسانی جلد ۱ | 1314 LH (1896/7) | Wikimedia Commons |
| تاریخ سلاطین ساسانی جلد ۲ | 1315 LH (1897/8) | HathiTrust |
| نامه دانشوران ناصری | 1318 LH (1900/1) | HathiTrust |
| نامه دانشوران ناصری | 1319 LH (1901/2) | HathiTrust |
| نامه دانشوران ناصری | 1321 LH (1903/4) | Ketabpedia |
| نامه دانشوران ناصری | 1323 LH (1905/6) | HathiTrust |
| نامه دانشوران ناصری | 1324 LH (1906/7) | KetabFarsi |
Almanacs continued to be published during the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic eras. However, the Qajar-era almanacs are uniquely useful for those interested in Iranian genealogy due to their consistency, detail, and information about individuals in a time before Iranian civil registration.
Seyyed Farid Ghasemi Khorramabadi is an expert on Iranian almanacs. He has written multiple books on the subject, including Abstract and Full Text of Iran’s Almanacs (1290-1312 LH) (چکیده و متن کامل سالنامه های ایران 1312 – 1290 ق) and Almanac-Keeping in Iran (سالنامه نگاری در ایران). For further reading about almanacs, see these books, as well as the following articles:
- Almanac-Keeping in Iran: The Anniversary of the Beginning of Almanac Publication (سالنامه نگاری در ایران: سالگشت آغاز انتشار سالنامه در ایران)
- The Iran’s First Almanac (نخستین سالنامه ایران).
*The list is missing the almanac in the second volume of Matla al-Shams (مطلع الشمس جلد ۲). If you have a PDF of this almanac, please use the Contact Form to let me know, and I will add it! The third volume of Matla al-Shams (مطلع الشمس جلد ۳) is scheduled to be digitized by the Library of Congress by mid-2025. I will add the PDF then. The Library of Congress’ copy is the only one I have found that has the salnameh.
If you have better PDFs of the three almanacs from the Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi Library, please send them.
Iranian Genealogy 
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