How I recently obtained my jiapu
Jul 30, 2010 0:42:19 GMT -5
Post by Doug 周 on Jul 30, 2010 0:42:19 GMT -5
I always felt that obtaining your jiapu is the holy grail of Chinese genealogy. Students of Chinese genealogy are made up of two groups of people: those who own their jiapu and those who want their jiapu. There is a lot of effort reflected in the posts of this forum about those trying to find some semblance of their jiapu.
The easiest and least expensive way is to get your jiapu from a relative. However, genealogy is a lonely endeavor and few relatives share the similar interest as those reading this forum. Even fewer of these relatives already own their family jiapu.
When my paternal grandmother’s family from Australia happened to be visiting China, I reminded them to get their own jiapu from their ancestral hall. They subsequently provided me a copy, my father’s matriarchal line. However, they were not successful in finding my grandfather’s (their distant in-law) ancestral hall. Chinese lineages classically is patriarchal and my paternal grandfather’s jiapu was important to me.
For a North American without native language skills, visiting China is a daunting and distant venture. I have no remaining close relatives with which to communicate. In my previous 3 visits to China, I was not prepared to search for my jiapu
Many persons have written within this forum about their travels to China to reconnect with family and received their jiapu after a pilgrimage to their ancestral village. I read with great interest douglaslam’s extension of the blog=>My Excellent Adventures in China on his recent trip to China. His stories include visits to ancestral hall, paying respect to ancestors, enjoying the culture and people of China, and banquets.
I took a different route with the focused goal of obtaining my paternal jiapu. In doing so, I am concerned my action (single goal of obtaining a document) was a faux pas, and that I have violated some ancient custom. I fretted writing about this experience, lest a more culturally aware blogger criticize me too severely for something I did unaware.
For a couple of years I have read on this Chinese Genealogy site that Henry's nephew Tan ShiCheng will guide and translate for overseas Chinese searching for their family roots and jiapu. I was especially intrigued to hear about his service of personally searching out your ancestral hall and obtaining a copy of your jiapu without my traveling to China. Regardless, there is major reluctance on my part on hiring an unknown person to do work for me in China. I have used guides in China where I was not convinced that they acted entirely on my behalf. Yet,combing through the posts on for forum, Tan ShiCheng was always recommended with favorable comments. Since he is based in Taishan and since my ancestral village is in Zhongshan, there was additional travel expense.
Because I could not interview Tan ShiCheng, I took an opportunity to meet Henry during a coincidental visit to the Eastern US. Sure enough, Henry in person has the same on line persona with his knowledgeableness, helpfulness, friendliness, and dedication. I was becoming more comfortable hiring Tan ShiCheng.
It was explicit that there is no guarantee of finding my jiapu. The Red Guards in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966-1971 had destroyed many ancestral halls and burned many jiapus. There was no way to know if my family’s hall was also destroyed. Henry later shared that more of the ancestral halls were destroyed in the north as compared to southern China.
Also, just as if I were to travel to China to find my ancestral hall, significant prior research was required. Unpreparedness was one of the reasons I could not attempt to find my jiapu and ancestral hall in my prior three visits to China. For Tan ShiCheng to be successful I needed to firm up my data. .
First, like Henry would always advise in his post, I needed the name of my ancestral village. I checked and rechecked the names from oral histories I recorded over the years. These names were always romanized/Anglicised name, totally useless in China. Also they were Anglicised from the common local dialect, which was so different from pinyin. It took many resources to confirm the Chinese characters of the ancestral village.
Secondly, following Henry’s blogs, I now needed confirmation of my family’s given names in Chinese characters. One of the nuances of Chinese names are the multiple given names used during a lifetime. See Al Chinn’s web page Chinese Names . I had several of my grandfather’s synonyms, but his main USA name and signature in Chinese on Angel Island documents would eventually not be the official name in his jiapu. I also did not have my great grandfather’s full given name. No one knew it, let alone was able to write it in Chinese. What really helped was that I eventually got a short lineage and listing of Chinese given names from my great grandfather’s brother down to his current descendants. That parallel small piece of lineage pinpointed my ancestor’s position in the jiapu.
With this compilation of information, Tan ShiCheng was successful in finding the jiapu and the ancestral hall. What was special was that he bookmarked the pages which had my ancestors, copied the characters onto a computer file, tracing out the lineage up through the first ancestor in Guangdong and then up the ancestral lineage up to Huangdi. That saved me an enormous amount of work!
I double checked his work up to Guangdong, and his listing was spot on. Tan ShiCheng provided photos and about 900 images of pages of the jiapu/zupu
Now that I finally have my jiapu, you would think I am finished. Not really, since I have quite a few pages to translate and study. I am using the format in the previous post: ‘General format of Zupu’ and how to read a jiapu to try to understand the information.
In conclusion:
Hmm, now I need my maternal jiapu and also need to finish with my wife’s side of the family. The genealogy search never ends!
Doug
(click on the red phrase to link to the URL)
The easiest and least expensive way is to get your jiapu from a relative. However, genealogy is a lonely endeavor and few relatives share the similar interest as those reading this forum. Even fewer of these relatives already own their family jiapu.
When my paternal grandmother’s family from Australia happened to be visiting China, I reminded them to get their own jiapu from their ancestral hall. They subsequently provided me a copy, my father’s matriarchal line. However, they were not successful in finding my grandfather’s (their distant in-law) ancestral hall. Chinese lineages classically is patriarchal and my paternal grandfather’s jiapu was important to me.
For a North American without native language skills, visiting China is a daunting and distant venture. I have no remaining close relatives with which to communicate. In my previous 3 visits to China, I was not prepared to search for my jiapu
Many persons have written within this forum about their travels to China to reconnect with family and received their jiapu after a pilgrimage to their ancestral village. I read with great interest douglaslam’s extension of the blog=>My Excellent Adventures in China on his recent trip to China. His stories include visits to ancestral hall, paying respect to ancestors, enjoying the culture and people of China, and banquets.
I took a different route with the focused goal of obtaining my paternal jiapu. In doing so, I am concerned my action (single goal of obtaining a document) was a faux pas, and that I have violated some ancient custom. I fretted writing about this experience, lest a more culturally aware blogger criticize me too severely for something I did unaware.
For a couple of years I have read on this Chinese Genealogy site that Henry's nephew Tan ShiCheng will guide and translate for overseas Chinese searching for their family roots and jiapu. I was especially intrigued to hear about his service of personally searching out your ancestral hall and obtaining a copy of your jiapu without my traveling to China. Regardless, there is major reluctance on my part on hiring an unknown person to do work for me in China. I have used guides in China where I was not convinced that they acted entirely on my behalf. Yet,combing through the posts on for forum, Tan ShiCheng was always recommended with favorable comments. Since he is based in Taishan and since my ancestral village is in Zhongshan, there was additional travel expense.
Because I could not interview Tan ShiCheng, I took an opportunity to meet Henry during a coincidental visit to the Eastern US. Sure enough, Henry in person has the same on line persona with his knowledgeableness, helpfulness, friendliness, and dedication. I was becoming more comfortable hiring Tan ShiCheng.
It was explicit that there is no guarantee of finding my jiapu. The Red Guards in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966-1971 had destroyed many ancestral halls and burned many jiapus. There was no way to know if my family’s hall was also destroyed. Henry later shared that more of the ancestral halls were destroyed in the north as compared to southern China.
Also, just as if I were to travel to China to find my ancestral hall, significant prior research was required. Unpreparedness was one of the reasons I could not attempt to find my jiapu and ancestral hall in my prior three visits to China. For Tan ShiCheng to be successful I needed to firm up my data. .
First, like Henry would always advise in his post, I needed the name of my ancestral village. I checked and rechecked the names from oral histories I recorded over the years. These names were always romanized/Anglicised name, totally useless in China. Also they were Anglicised from the common local dialect, which was so different from pinyin. It took many resources to confirm the Chinese characters of the ancestral village.
Secondly, following Henry’s blogs, I now needed confirmation of my family’s given names in Chinese characters. One of the nuances of Chinese names are the multiple given names used during a lifetime. See Al Chinn’s web page Chinese Names . I had several of my grandfather’s synonyms, but his main USA name and signature in Chinese on Angel Island documents would eventually not be the official name in his jiapu. I also did not have my great grandfather’s full given name. No one knew it, let alone was able to write it in Chinese. What really helped was that I eventually got a short lineage and listing of Chinese given names from my great grandfather’s brother down to his current descendants. That parallel small piece of lineage pinpointed my ancestor’s position in the jiapu.
With this compilation of information, Tan ShiCheng was successful in finding the jiapu and the ancestral hall. What was special was that he bookmarked the pages which had my ancestors, copied the characters onto a computer file, tracing out the lineage up through the first ancestor in Guangdong and then up the ancestral lineage up to Huangdi. That saved me an enormous amount of work!
I double checked his work up to Guangdong, and his listing was spot on. Tan ShiCheng provided photos and about 900 images of pages of the jiapu/zupuNow that I finally have my jiapu, you would think I am finished. Not really, since I have quite a few pages to translate and study. I am using the format in the previous post: ‘General format of Zupu’ and how to read a jiapu to try to understand the information.
In conclusion:
- I was fortunate to have available my jiapu and that Tan ShiCheng found them the ancestral hall.
- Even hiring someone else to do the ‘legwork’, I myself had to do significant research to provide as much Chinese characters information for Tan ShiCheng to ‘field test’ the jiapu and confirm that it was mine.
- I appreciated the service and efficiency of Tan ShiCheng and felt it was a worthwhile value. BTW, I have no financial relationship with either Henry or Tan ShiCheng.
Hmm, now I need my maternal jiapu and also need to finish with my wife’s side of the family. The genealogy search never ends!
Doug
(click on the red phrase to link to the URL)
