Need Help to Locate Village Name

Hi John,

Wow, you have three years of Chinese education! That would probably translate to be more than three years longer than Henry or me as you would have picked more Chinese since then. I wish my grandmother had sent given me for a couple of years of Chinese education. If she had, I may not now have to struggle through in trying to piece together our Chen/Chan/Chin/Tan genealogy.

Henry has pretty much provide you with what you need in pursuing your search for your Chan ancestry. Henry and I had met each other in Kuala Lumpur in August 2008. We had a great time together. You can read about it in the following thread:
siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=names&action=display&thread=796

As to your query on generation poem, Henry had already responded to you. However I would like reproduce the translation from part of the preface from a zupu where my 50th cousin four times removed from Boston belongs to. The translation was done by my 50th cousin thrice removed from New York. The preface was written by the zupu compiler Chen Haifeng (陳海峰) dated 26th of June 1993.

To read the Chinese characters, please click "View", "Encoding" and "Unicode (UTF-8)"

"我嘗研究陳氏世系，據歷史所載：陳氏大舜為始祖，周武王封胡公滿于陳，在今河南開封府，后人與邑為姓。
I tried to do research on Chén 陳 genealogy. According to written historical records, Emperor Shun was the first ancestor of the Chén 陳 family. King Wu of Zhou (Chinese: 周武王; pinyin: zhōu wŭ wáng) or King Wu of Chou confer the territory of Chén 陳 to Hugong Man 胡公满. The territory of Chén 陳 is in present day Kaifeng, Henan province. Later generations used the name of the territory Chén 陳 as the family name.

在漢桓帝時陳實，字仲弓，為太丘長，名重天下，是陳氏近祖，在廣州市有太丘書院。
Chen Shi 陳實 lived during the reign of Emperor Huan Di 桓帝 (146 – 168 C.E.) of the Han Dynasty. His zì 字 was 仲弓 Zhònggōng. He became a very famous leader of the town of 太丘 Tàiqiū. He is a Chén ancestor of the recent past. There is an academy of classical learning in Guangzhou called 太丘書院 Tàiqiū Academy.

至宋朝陳輝。號鳳臺，為諫議大夫，生謨，宣，英，愷，閏，圖，仁，原住南雄保昌縣沙水村九眼井，珠磯巷，因避亂，兄弟七人率子侄廿八人逃亡，大難臨頭各分飛，謨至新會，宣至東莞，英至沖金，愷至汶村，閏至潮州，圖至古岡，仁至清遠。
Chen Hui 陳輝 lived during the Song Dynasty. His hào 號 was Fèngtái 鳳臺. He was the official in charge of arbitration. He fathered Mó 謨, Xuān 宣, Yīng 英, Kǎi 愷, Rùn 閏, Tú 圖, and Rén 仁. He originally lived in Zhūjī 珠璣 Lane in Jiǔyǎn 九眼 Court of the Village of Shāshuǐ 沙水 in the District of Bǎocháng 保長 in the Prefecture of Nánxióng 南雄. Because of political unrest, the seven brothers together with their families (altogether 28 people) fled from home. When the great catastrophe arrived, everyone fled in different directions. Mó 謨 went to Xīnhuì 新會. Xuān 宣 went to Dōngwǎn 東莞. Yīng 英 went to Chōngjīn 冲金. Kǎi 愷 went to Wèncūn 汶村. Rùn 閏 went to Cháozhōu 潮州. Tú 圖 went to Gǔgāng 古岡. Rén 仁 went to Qīngyuǎn 清遠.

依據宋賢陳白沙先生所撰之法祖派目：
藉鳳毓嘉秀，和敬發賢良，
文明應顯達，萬世永傳揚。
A very talented Song Dynasty gentleman by the name of Chén Bái Shā 陳白沙 created the following generation poem:
Jí fèng yù jiā xiù, hé jìng fā xián liáng,
Wén míng yīng xiǎn dá, wàn shì yǒng chuan yang.

代代相連，以記輩數，由于族譜失傳，無從稽考，欲從頭整編，殊不易為。
Because many genealogy books are lost, it is extremely difficult to ascertain with certainty who our ancestors were. To start from scratch would not be an easy task.

九三年四月，吾又侄葆真，由鄉回美，經港小住，與吾論編修族譜事，據云：「現有之族譜，原屬應儀君所珍藏而整理之，又抄錄為副本，授予為參考之資，并奉為典範焉，亦僅粗具規模而己，尚未臻完璧也。隨后又得毓孚君以舊族譜乙本助吾為編修之需，觀其內容，更為遠古，自舜以前溯源于黃帝有熊氏，為人文之初祖，固然有參考之價值。」
In April of 1993 my nephew Bǎo Zhēn葆真 on his way to America, stopped briefly in Hong Kong where I lived. We discussed how to reconstruct our genealogy. Someone said: "There was a gentleman by the name of Yīng Yí 應儀 who took pride in preserving some very old genealogy books. He made a copy of it, which may be used as a model, although there were many details missing. Later on he obtain another old copy from Yù Fú 毓孚 which shed some light on the other copy. This copy went further back from Shun Di to Huang Di, who was our first ancestor. This is most valuable to me."

意擬予以剪裁，縮小範圍，編為家譜，傳至后人，使其毋忘祖宗之源流，與旁親之開枝，意義殊大，實非尋常之舉。
The goal of doing all this is to preserve our past generations for our future generations.

葆真君深知事繁任重，惟意志堅強，努力完成編修任務，功績昭然，留名后世，至為欽佩。檢查家譜內容，決定自黃帝有熊氏開始，順序整理編修，遠勝以后，詳列無遺。秀祥太祖生達勝，達榮，達華，分居于平安，銅鑼柱及大墪三村，查達字本是和字，但何故改和為達，未聞長者提及，不得而知。我達勝祖當年兄弟三人，選擇平坦田洋立村，緬想前輩勤勞，鑿井耕田，安居樂業'，且兄弟三村成品字形，守望相助，雞犬之聲相聞，互為唇齒，急則可相依，意在斯乎。
My nephew spent many hours helping me to put together this genealogy work so that generations from Dacheng on will have a complete detailed reference zupu. Xiu Xiang fathered Dacheng, Darong, and Dahua living in Ping’an, Tongluozhu, and Dadun villages respectively. Original the character Da 達 was the character He 和. Nobody know why it was changed. The three brothers found this land very cultivatable. It was flat and well watered. They built houses on the land in the shape of a triangle so that they can see each other and they can hear the sound of each other’s chickens and dogs. In other words, they will be able to help each other in case they have problems.

復承前清探花陳伯陶先生繼宋賢陳白沙先生再撰法祖派目；
大德名兼壽，家邦耀遠光，
廣南星起叙，育俊兆其昌。
A third-place candidate in the imperial examination Chen Botao continued Chen Baisha’s generation poem for another twenty generations.
Da de ming jian shou, jia bang yao yuan guang,
Guang nan xing qi xu, yu jun zhao qi chang.

又可接續二十代矣，維我達勝祖之子孫，螽斯衍慶、綿延萬世，祈求晚輩有杰出之人材，將此家譜銜接而下，重訂新編，后來進上，更發揚光大也。
We hope that Dacheng’s descendants will flourish for a long time, when another poet will composed a generation poem for another twenty generations and continue their zupu.

六月下旬，葆真君寄來家譜初稿乙份，經吾校對無訛，適逢應棠君歸港渡假，乃將此稿交其訂正，過目之余，不勝歡欣，且概然贊助印刷費用，鼎力玉成善舉，故特題名以資紀念。
My thanks to my nephew Baozhen, who at the end of June, sent back two copies of the zupu to me. I proofread it and found no errors. Thank you to Yingtang who came to Hong Kong and saw the zupu. He was very pleased with the manuscripts and donated money to have it printed.

吾外孫媳黃思虹女士，負責與台山印刷廠接洽承印事宜，并代為寄發，費神之處，感激無涯矣，是為序。
Thank you to my granddaughter-in-law Huang Sihong who took care of the publishing of the zupu in Taishan and sent it back to me.

陳海峰敬撰
公歷一九九三年六月二十六日
Written by Chen Haifeng
26th of June 1993"

Chén Bái Shā 陳白沙 was not from this branch of Chen. He was from the same branch as Alex (June Chan)’s husband. I have this branch generation poem and I intend to post it in the following thread soon.
siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=names&action=display&thread=752

I also intend to post the lineage from the progenitor Chen Pan Xiang (陳判鄉) (Generation 1) down to Generation 16.

Philip Tan

Hi Henry,

Thank you for your suggestion. I have just done the posting in the thread suggested.

Philip

Hi Philip,

I accessed your thread in Henry's reply to you. It was amazing!!! The pictures which are absolutely fantastic and make the chart so much interesting to follow. Thank you so much for your hard work in organizing it and for sharing it with us.

Regards,
John

Hi John,

When Henry started the section on "Clan Progenitor References" it was to assist readers in this Forum who share some common surnames in tracing their ancestries all to the way back to Huangdi (黃帝, 2697 BC to 2598 BC). For the "Chen/Tan/Chan/Chin (陈/陳) Clan" thread within this section, it is to assist readers like you who have the same surname as mine.

Maybe you would have noticed that I am, relatively speaking, a baby in this Forum; just learning to walk and run as I joined this Forum only about a year ago. The credit on whatever you see that was posted by me should really go to my Sifu, Henry Tom. Henry has taught me so much; provide me with so much help and assistance that without him I would not be able to produce the little that you see. Given a bit of time, with your knowledge of Chinese and being four years younger than I am, I am quite confident that you will quickly overtake me in your understanding of Chen genealogy. When you do I hope you will join up in providing assistance to other readers in this Forum.

Do not worry about changing of Chinese characters to simplified format from the traditional form or vise-versa. You will soon get the hang of it especially when you have nciku.com to assist.

Where in Malaysia is your brother-in-law from?

Philip

Philip,

As mentioned before, from your thread, I was able to access you information. I was really impressed with the chart including the pictures. First curious question: how does one know which picture belong to the person as there are so many?? Second question: Is it possible to print the chart including pictures??? Do you have to put it on jpeg. or pdf. file??? I would love to have a copy of the chart with the pictures. How can I go about achieving that? Please inform. Thanks.

John

John,

Philip's proposed deal is more than fair. If you are able to secure your family Chen lineage up to the Chen progenitor of Guangdong province, presumeably - Chen Hui and his 7 sons - Philips's posted Chen lineages, with pictures, takes you back another 117 generations to Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor (2697 BC - 2597 BC). There are probably 30 plus generations from you to Chen Hui - so, we are talking about around 140 plus generations from you.

Philip has already done all the heavy lifting in terms of the Chen lineage research - all you have to do is get a hold of a copy of your family/clan Chen lineage and connect to Chen Hui or one of his sons.

If you are serious about starting this process - you should post the Chinese characters and Pinyi romanization for the names of your ancestral village and grandfather and great grandfather, Al Chinn provided to you, on the Forum - so, we can begin to locate your ancestral village.

By the way, you are getting a lot of valuable information - for free - if you engaged the Chinese genealogy experts at the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco - their rate is $150 USD per hour - minimun retainer is $500 USD.

Also, the members of this Forum collectively - are a fairly awesome group of Chinese genealogy researchers - and we do not have to play second fiddle to any Chinese genealogy researchers out there.


Henry

Philip,

I accessed Xuangxing's thread on how to post an image. Wow, you have to be really computer savvy to do what he did!! (maybe I was easily impressed because I am not too computer literate!!). I could appreciate how much effort and time were required to construct the chart and the pictures. Thanks to you both.

John