Records of scholar who took civil examination

[stephpix]

Hello,

With my grandfather's passing two years ago, my family and I were left with a lot of documentations and photographs of our heritage but with little directions or ideas on how to piece them together to form a coherent history. I am looking to trace my great-grandfather's origins, Wong Shou Po, who was from Taishan. From what I understood from a few of older aunts, he was a scholar and did take the civil examinations (from what I was told). I know there are records of individuals who took the civil examinations and so, on a long shot, wonder if there is a way to check if such records still exists? I am holding out on a whisper of hope that it might contain a way to trace the village he came from.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Henry]

Hi Stephpix,

Welcome to the Forum.

Does your grandfather's gravestone have Chinese characters inscribed on it - if so, they are for his Chinese name and the village where he was born. If you can take a digital photo of these Chinese characters from his gravestone and post it on the Forum - we could help to try and locate the village.

Do you have envelopes with return addresses in China? How about documents where he may have written the village in Chinese or English.

Once you have the village name, you can hire a person to go to your ancestral village to identity village relatives, try and find the family genealogy book. Since your grandfather was a civil service scholar - his name would probably be so annotated.

Regards,


Henry

[stephpix]

Hi Henry,

Thanks so much for replying.

Unfortunately, I think my grandfather's gravestone does not have any of the Chinese characters that denotes the village he came from. The family had migrated to Singapore during the early 1900s, but there might be a small chance that among the letters and envelopes left behind there might be an address to work with. And I know he went on one last trip to the village so there should be some photographs around as well. So yes, I will definitely have a look at those again when I go back to visit. It is just hard to read the characters as they are written in traditional Chinese script while the rest of us are more used to simplified Chinese script.

I also recall that there was a Wong Clan association in Singapore and will see if I can get more information from them as well.

I will update everyone if I managed to find some information to share about the Wong Clan.

Thanks again!

Stephanie

[helen]

www.lib.nus.edu.sg/lebao/index.html

Lat Pau, the longest running Chinese daily during pre-War Singapore, was started by Mr See Ewe Lay in December 1881 and lasted 52 years before it finally ceased in March 1932. Lat Pau is an invaluable historical source for research into pre-war Singapore as well as Chinese overseas during that period. Unfortunately the earliest issues of the newspaper were lost and now the issues extant at the NUS Chinese Library cover only the period August 19 1887 to March 31 1932.

Are these newspapers any use to you?

[helen]

www.chinatownology.com/singapore_clan_associations.html This website might hold some clues/contacts

[stephpix]

Hi Helen,

Thanks so much for the link to the newspaper archive and to the clan association page! This is incredible! Now all I have to do is brush up on my rusty grasp of Mandarin and get a good Mandarin-English dictionary. I will definitely have a look and get my other relatives to help out as well.


Cheers!
Steph

[Woodson]

The last Imperial exam was held in 1905, more than 100 years ago. If your ggf had to passed the second level of the Imperial exam ladder before he can participate in the final stage of the Imperial exam which took place in Beijing. Names of these participants may be sitting in some achieves in Beijing.

Another clue is if he had passed the second level exam then he was a Jǔrén (舉人) and would have had a gateway erected in his honour in the village. Also it would've been a major local event and the county almanac surely would devoted some ink to it.

[stephpix]

Hi Woodson,

Thanks so much for the information! I'm not sure how well my grandfather had done but that definitely provides more clues on what to look for as I discover more about my history.

Cheers!
Steph