Is this what you were referring to, Doug?
I don't think the links will work but the essence of your very helpful posts is there.
Cheers
Keith
******************************
How to Start Your Chinese Family Heritage Research
Record your Interviews
Surname First
Start the family heritage research with what you know best; you know your parents and immediate family. Interview them, and keep notes. Confirm your surname. Genealogy research beyond your immediate family is extremely difficult without this confirmation. Your family members need to verify the surname. This will require your own investigation. Even if your elders have a cognitive impairment or mild dementia, remember that the long term memory is the last to be lost. Take any opportunity to gather information before it is too late. To keep your interview most like a conversation, audio record them so you will not have to interrupt them to jot notes. Be careful that you yourself might have senior moments; transcribe the interview within 24 hours. You will remember body language shifts which you might want to notate. Frequent short interviews are best. You and your elders will be most comfortable the second, third, etc interview, since it is merely a reminiscing of an event.
Because of the travails of immigration to a new country, many immigrants did not want to hassle correcting the name order mistakenly placed on Chinese names. They were too busy surviving in their host country and fending off hostile and racist natives. There is a Chinese saying: 'Never enter a government building while one is alive'. Chinese names are surname first, given names second. Name addressing styles in the previous century usually meant pronouncing both first and last names at the same time; immigrants may not recognize the record keeping issues.
Further explanation is required for the “shi”, “shee” issue. It does not have the same meaning as Ms. Actually it is closer to Mrs. since it was generally prefixed by the husband's surname and her own maiden name. For genealogy research purposes we only need to know “shi” is not our female ancestors' given name.
Also, don’t be fooled by the common Guangdong custom of adding the colloquial prefix ‘Ah’ to a name. Ah Gung, Ah Biq are examples. Some immigrants have taken on the ‘Ah’ prefix as a given name. The suffix ‘Shi’,‘Shee’, or 'Sih' (氏) means ‘Mrs’ in current Amglish (American-English) terms. Married immigrant women have assumed the suffix as a host country surname,eg Wong Shee. While the maiden surname is used as a given name, it does provides a clue to the maternal family heritage research
If you are using an older operating system (Win XP) to correctly view Chinese characters please select View, Encoding, and Unicode option from the browser Menu.
Be aware that adoption was common in China 1)2)3).
Chinese Characters
Make sure to know your surname in Chinese character. Don’t depend on the romanization or anglization of your name as to the clue to your Chinese surname character. Get as many of the given names in Chinese characters. Characters for some families are hard to find because of the penchant for assimilation into the host country and non-use of Chinese (especially the written language). Be advised that Chinese literacy is absolutely NOT required to study Chinese family heritage and to manipulate Chinese characters.
Insist on using names rather than titles of your relatives. Chinese family culture always emphasizes the titles. Uncles and Aunts may only be known by their birth number. You will be amazed at the reluctance in divulging or not even knowing their Chinese names, let alone their character sets.
Be aware of the multiple names of our pre WWII ancestors. Contrary to the current Western custom of spending so much effort deciding the birth given names of newborns, realize the triviality of milk or birth name (小 名) and understand the taboo of non nuclear family calling a person by such name4). Understand the school name, the Zi (字) name, and the Hao (號) name given to adult males. Acknowledge that married women at that time became part of the household of the husband; this should not be an insurmountable obstacle to studying maternal family heritage.
Extended Family
Interview your extended family such as uncles, aunts, & cousins for clues. Talk to your living relatives. Make appointments (to prevent from being labeled the genealogy 'nut'). Bring a digital recorder (ask permission). Bring a scanner (no need to borrow family treasures). Record telephone conversations using Google Voice (ask permission). Relatives with early dementia lose their short term memory first, but can remember past events in details. Use photos and family relics to initiate or extend conversations. If you cannot record a conversation, write your impressions soon thereafter lest you forget. If you record a conversation, transcribe it quickly. If you are using a translator, record both the interviewee and the translator.
If your elders are deceased, discuss your remembrances of your family with living relatives. Write down the family stories. Always note your sources, because the deeper and more detailed your study of your family heritage, the more your own memory will fail you with the minutia.
You need to discover from what part of China your ancestor came (ancestral village). This is how your family heritage study will become a geography study. The Pearl Delta area of Guangdong is a major source of the turn-of-the-20th century Chinese diaspora to English speaking countries. Recognizing the names of the counties in the Pearl River Delta will help your research in understanding these subdivisions and their parallels with language dialects. Then your sociology lesson will start in the knowledge that there are hundreds of individual distinctly named villages within each county. Native sons make it a point to return to their ancestral villages.
Each village is home to a very few distinct surnames or clans. The then common custom of individuals to continually return to their (ancestral) village of birth emphasizes the importance of knowing these village names. This information has been categorized into a searchable Pearl Delta based Village Database. You might find clues to your ancestral village from any birth records, correspondence, legal or travel documents, or gravestone inscriptions of your relative. It is best to obtain your elders ancestral village in Chinese characters. Because of the lack of variety of surname5) and the size of China, the ancestral village is the second ‘GPS like’ coordinate in your search to locate your family heritage. The first two coordinates are the surname and the time period. Knowledge of the location of the ancestral village pinpoints where your JIAPU 家譜 might be located. Even if you are fortunate and your clan, village, or local government has already compiled the jiapus into a modern, hardbound book, your family heritage is analog indexed by surname and ancestral village6).
Start a pencil & paper family tree chart to help with organization.
Study Written Material
Consider the information on your ancestors' gravestones, especially if in Chinese characters7). Since gravestones are frequently etched in Chinese and if prior immigration status was secretive, it is assumed the host country officials cannot and will not read the characters on gravestones. The real history of an individual might be recorded on the tombstones8) (the dead don't lie). Record your sources. Seek help in interpreting the characters on a gravestone. See Techniques in 'The Cemetery Project'.
Look for correspondence and return addresses on envelopes. Look behind photos or on their edges. Search local archives, libraries, newspapers, associations, societies, organizations, and museums. Look for that local newspaper article about that ‘Chinaman’s store just opened’ in the area's archives. Remember the internet is only the tip of the family heritage iceberg. Most information has not been digitized.
Don’t underestimate the archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are known for their study of genealogy, and their Family History Centers offer free help without proselytizing.
Consider the jiapu, the Holy Grail of Chinese family heritage studies. The jiapu is the classic Chinese genealogy record of many generations and will include the paternal side of the family. With luck, the maternal side is also included buried in the biographies. The jiapu is hard to obtain because of distance and their destruction from prior political upheaval9).
Research the host countries’ national historical record archive. For example, because of the 1882 US Chinese Exclusion Act, interviews with my grandparents were transcribed by a stenographer intent on catching fraudulent statements. Just reading the transcripts made me feel like they were communicating with me and helped me understand their personalities. The transcripts are a valuable adjunct to the family heritage collection and might point clues to further areas of research.
National Archives of Australia
US Citizenship and Immigration Services
National Archives (USA) see this information sheet
Library and Archives Canada
New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs:Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust
New Zealand Office of Ethnic Affairs
Read about the historical events occurring during the time of your ancestors, the legal and social obstacles of just surviving in their host country, to better understand how our ancestors felt and why they made certain choices. This will also help you find other sources. For the USA, these are the Chinese Exclusion Act with paper names, the Punti Hakka wars, the abolishment of Black slavery with the need for labor10), the 1906 San Francisco earthquake11), among many other events. Learn about the geography of the parts of China of your ancestors.
Consider purchasing this U$35 resource, considered by some to be the best how-to book on Chinese genealogy You are Royalty. For transparency, the author Al Chinn is a moderator of a SiYiGenealogy subforum. There is neither financial interest nor any personal relationship to Mr. Chinn. However his web site has a lot of basic information for free and will give you an inkling of what is in his book.
Use Modern Tools
Document times and locations in your ancestors' arrival country. Use Ancestry.com to search for ship manifest for your elders’ names. Get yourself a magnifying glass for those scraps of papers or the writing on the back of the photographs. Record your sources.
When sharing remembrances of elders, consider using modern tools like Wordpress™, Google Docs™ or Blogspot™ to bridge distances with these relatives.
Use the power of the internet to fully manipulate Chinese characters, which will obviate illiteracy.
Consider a genealogy program like Geni. When you compile up to 500 profiles, consider moving to a more robust program to help organize digitally. See this discussion.
Remember your Sources
In genealogy, there are never truths; there are only sources which lead to your conclusions about ancestors. Your job as a student of family heritage is to determine the sometimes conflicting validity of many sources, then making a conclusion. Future family heritage researchers will review not only your conclusions, but your sources. They will add their own new sources and make a their own conclusion. Don’t throw away your research work by not documenting your sources. Don’t let people call you work gossip, hearsay, or mythology.
Ask for help
Ask questions in these forums for help:
Chinese Genealogy Forum
Bulletin Board for Chinese Surname and Genealogy Queries and Responses
Untitled but open ended forum related to #2 above
China Genealogy Forum sponsored by Genealogy.com
Hakka Chinese Forum at Asiawind
Family History & Genealogy Message Board by rootsweb.com
Some examples include help with localized anglization/romanization styles or customs for surnames for your particular region, such as Jamaica and Malaysia. Post your findings & specific questions and participants will try to discuss ways around any roadblocks. For best response, do the above steps in this Wiki first; responders take time to help those who have specific queries. Look at the detail of this question from a thread in the Chinese Genealogy Forum.
There is a whole section on the Chinese Genealogy Forum on location, moderated by many knowledgeable people including former professional geographers.
Post a digital photo of the gravestones if you need help in the interpretation.
The enjoyment of family heritage studies comes from the fruits of your own labor and research.
For those who would prefer professional help:
Chinese Cultural Center. The web site needs updating and is the presumption is that the service is still offered.
Translation Services. Performed by Al Chinn a moderator of the Chinese Genealogy Forum.
Tan ShiCheng, a Taishan based guide and jiapu researcher, relative of Henry a moderator of the Chinese Genealogy Forum.
These next professional sites come from this Tamura Jones review. A cursory peak at these sites do not show an emphasis on Chinese heritage genealogy research. You might follow the web instructions for further inquiry.
Genlighten
Freelancers
Expert Genealogy
GenealogyPro
(There is no fiduciary relationship with any of the above)
Family heritage research is a never ending but satisfying endeavor. If you run into a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, take a break. You will frequently discover clues to the desired answer 3 to 12 months later.
The serendipity of discovery occurs only to those prepared.
IMHO,
Doug 2014AUG19
1)
www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=140&fk_files=1808770 Arthur H. Smith, D.D., Village Life in China, A Study in Sociology (New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899)p140
2)
siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=names&thread=1263&page=1#76683)
www.cefc.com.hk/pccpa.php?aid=2066#_edn384)
www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1808770&pageno=133 Arthur H. Smith, D.D., Village Life in China, A Study in Sociology (New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899)p133
5)
www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html?_r=1]6) C Devilliers, e-mail message to author Doug, 23 November 2010
7)
archive.amol.org.au/goldenthreads/downloads/gravestones.pdf Doris Yau-Chong Jones, Reading Chinese GravestonesNovember 2001 Golden Threads The Chinese in Reginal NSW 1850-1920
8)
siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=names&thread=235&page=1#15669)
siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=shared&action=display&thread=120910)
sharlot.org/archives/history/dayspast/text/2005_07_17.shtml11)
www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/42298#more-42298