Tom Genealogy Website

[Henry]

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

As of July 8th, my Tom Genealogy website on the Verizon server will no longer be available and it may take me a couple months to re-establish it elsewhere. The immediate effect will be that the maps that I have posted on the SiYi Forum will no longer be viewable. My apologies.

My wife and I are moving to Phoenix on July 4th and there is no Verizon server in that area. Also, my "[e-mail]" email address and telephone number 301 631 1982 will also be disconnected.

I can still be contacted here at the SiYi Forum and also on "[e-mail]".


Henry

[helen]

Sorry to hear the news Henry. We'll have to get as much info off as possible before it disappears. Hope the move goes well.

[chansomvia]

Hi Henry,
We shall miss the very detailed maps and especially the effort you take in pin pointing in English the location of the villages. I hope these will not be lost and can be loaded again in the near future.
The internet connections in developed countries seem to be controlled by politics and/or profit agendas and not by the technical issues. I tried getting a cheap throwaway North American SIM pay as you go card for my GSM phone (which we do with SIM in China, UK, NZ and Malaysia) for use in Canada and US. This facility in North America is very expensive so will go back to global roaming when I visit Toronto on July 26th, will spend a couple of days around 11th July in Los Angeles on my way back to New Zealand.
Have a good transfer, and take it easy.
Joe

[Henry]

Dear Friends,

I will still retain the maps. After I re-establish the website - I will have to re-edit the links in the SiYi Forums threads - so they can be re-directed to the new URL and then the maps that I posted will be available again.

Regards,

Henry

[LJ]

Hi Henry,

Have you re-established your website? I would like to view the generation poem for your family.

Regards,
LJeung

[LJ]

Hi Henry

Were you able to re-establish your website?

Wishing you Happy Holidays,
LJeung

[Henry]

Dear LJeung,

Please email me directly at " [e-mail] " and I will be delighted to provide you with any information that I have.

By the way, my grandfather returned to China on a ship named "China" in the 1880s - looks exactly like the image of the Pacific Mail ship associated with your name.


My best regards,

Henry

[LJ]

Dear Henry,

Thank you for your e-mail address. I will e-mail you shortly.

The ship associated with my name is indeed the Pacific Mail Steamship (P.M.S.S.) China. Thank you for noticing that! Anyway, according to his statements in files at NARA, my maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather Lee You Fon (李祐寬 or 李佑寬) arrived in San Francisco by wooden sidewheel steamship on May 22, 1869 (although my grandmother told me that he had arrived in Northern California much earlier, as a child with his elders.) Unfortunately, he had forgotten the name of the ship. Curious about the name of the ship, I searched online newspaper archives for articles on any ships arriving in San Francisco from China on or around that date. The closest match I found was the P.M.S.S. China arriving on May 20, 1869. One such article was the article "China and Japan" in the Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 7002, 21 May 1869. All that is left of the ship is its social saloon, now called the China Cabin and located in Tiburon. See the Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society's China Cabin webpage. I just need to get confirmation, like a ship's passenger list, that this was the actual ship that he sailed aboard to America. I could not find such a list at Ancestry.com and NARA. Archivist William "Bill" Greene at the National Archives at San Francisco says the passenger lists from that time period were destroyed in a fire. I am hoping a copy of the ship's passenger list exists. Do you know of such a copy?

I have links to a few more articles about this ship, articles with pictures of the ship:

• Artists Previously on Display | Tiburon Heritage and Arts - search for the term "China Cabin"
• PMSS China in Tiburon 1886
• Potash & Company - Pacific Mail Steamship Collection
• Journal, 1869, Jan. 19 - March 23 - although this was the journal of a U.S. naval officer on an earlier voyage, it gives an idea of what a voyage on this ship was like

Best regards,
LJeung

[Henry]

Dear LJeung,

A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to be in Tiburon and did see the China Cabin. There is so much Chinese American history in the Bay Area.

Please excuse my tardy reply to request regarding my generational poem:





Translation




Whew! The standards are high !


Henry

[LJ]

Dear Henry,

Unfortunately, I myself have yet to visit the China Cabin. I will try to visit it this year. But yes, there is so much Chinese America history in the Bay Area.

Thank you for posting your generation poem. I saw it several years ago on your former website and noticed that the middle character, 澤 (Jaak), of my father-in-law's father's name, Taam Jaak Lim (譚泽廉), was the same as the fourth character in the second row of the poem, and that the next character in the poem, 遠 (Yun), sounded similar to the middle character in the names of my uncle-in-laws Tom Yen Won and Tom Jun Choy (that is, if "Jun" is actually pronounced "Yun") and cousin-in-law Tom Yin Dot. Do you think these correspondences are valid?

Which character in the poem is yours?

LJeung

[keongsiew]

Dear Henry,
I am the 3rd generation of Tam residing on Malaysia and trying to trace my ancestral village. The only clue I have at the moment is my grandfather came from Nanhai district sometime on early 1900s. Any idea how & where I can continue my search?

Best regards,
keong

[helen]

Hi Keong

Have you emailed Henry direct - email address is above. Cheers