Shi family (施)

[michel]

Hi there, my name is Michel, I'm a 4th generation chinese indonesian. I'm investigating the family tree of my paternal family, Shi (施). My ancestor, Shi Ho Long came to Indonesia on the early 20th century. While I have rebuilt family tree of his descendants, I want to know whether he had any brother, sister, or just tracking my genealogy which I believe, from Longxi, Fujian. I wonder if any of you share the surname 施? I'm really interested to reconnect with descendants from my great grandfather's family because recently I was connected with people from my dutch ancestry. It's interesting that even if our connection has severed for hundred years, we still can relate to each other.

[Doug 周]

Michel,

You probably saw Nick's post on My China Roots siyigenealogy.proboards.com/thread/2069/china-roots-john-jung The owner huihanlie siyigenealogy.proboards.com/user/1673 is a Dutch of Chinese heritage living in Beijing.

Finally, consider contacting philip siyigenealogy.proboards.com/user/252 since his specialty is Indonesian Chinese from the Fujian region.

You will need the given names of your ancestors as well as the ancestral village. Check this wiki: chinese.rootswiki.legacy1.net/doku.php?id=techniques:how_to_start

[philiptancl]

Hi Michel,

Is Longxi in Fujian as marked on the maps below? If it is, I would think the dialect of your ancestors would be very different from mine; so much so that we yours would sound totally foreign to me. Yours would probably be Minbei while mine is Minnan as spoken in Quanzhou. My ancestral village is in Yongchun (north-west of Quanzhou). I am not able to pick up any word in the dialect as spoken in Fuzhou.

Since you have the family tree from Shi Ho Long downwards and if you know his name in Chinese character, short of going there yourself, I too would suggest you to seek out the service of Huihanlie of My China Roots.



Philip

[lachinatown]

Hi Philip, what site you use to get your map? It shows both the English and Chinese names, which is the old way on map.google.com.

[philiptancl]

Hi Michel,

The Longxi I mentioned in my previous posting may not be correct. This is what I found from Wikipedia that reads as follow:

“During the mid- and late Ming Dynasty, the port of Yuegang (月港, "Moon Harbor") was one of the four main commercial ports of Fujian and a key port in the Manila galleon trade.[2] It was located within the present-day Haicheng Town of Longhai City.[3][4]
Present-day Longhai City is the only county-level city within the prefecture-level city of Zhangzhou. It was formed from the merger of the former Longxi (龍溪縣) and Haicheng (海澄縣) counties on August 15, 1960.”

From my guess, this could be the more likely place from where your ancestor in Fujian had migrated to Indonesia. If that is so your ancestor dialect would be almost the same as mine. However I think this place could be more challenging in locating your ancestral place.
Below is where Longhai location:



Hi Lachinatown,

I just search for "Longxi, Fujian" in Google. I think I may have selected one that is located in Fujian. Then I click on the "map" to have a look at it. Enlarged the map appropriately to get what I wanted. What you see in Siyi was what I got.

I remember on one previous occasion when I wanted to have the map in both Chinese & English, somehow I was then not able to get it.

From your email, I understand it works for Fujian region but doesn’t for Taishan or other area.

Philip

[Doug 周]

Michel,

You will need to do your basic Chinese genealogy first. This will be the same as your Dutch genealogy.

In your interviews and researching the family artifacts, look for Chinese characters which might represents the Ancestral Village and the given names of your ancestors. Be aware, that the Chinese had many given names. Gung Gung will not be a given name that is recorded.

Let us know what you find and how we can help.

[michel]

Phillip and Doug, thank you very much for your info (sorry for the late reply - I forgot to bookmark this website). as you said Doug, I need to identify his complete name first, so I will visit his grave which is located in Makassar next year (I'm currently studying overseas). I will bump this thread again once I start my journey

[huihanlie]

Hi Michel, pleasure to meet you, my name is Huihan (Doug and Philip were kind enough to mention me earlier in this thread). I agree with Philip that the Longxi that is now Longhai is more likely to be the Longxi you're looking for than the one that is north of Fuzhou.

I was born and raised in Holland, but my family spent five/six generations Indonesia after having left China in the mid-19th century. My ancestors from my mother's side were also from the Zhangzhou area, and they arrived in middle Java/Semarang, before moving on to Pekalongan and Cirebon. "Unfortunately", my mother's maiden name is not Shi but The/郑.

However, i have a good friend, whose surname IS Shi/施, and whose ancestors also came from the Zhangzhou area. they left for Indonesia a bit earlier than your ancestor. Unfortunately, we have not been able to trace my friend's particular ancestral village yet (btw, he is from Surabaya and has been living in China since 1961). How long has your family been in Makassar? if you still have family/friends there, perhaps they can take some quick pictures with their smartphones of your family's graves? in any case, if you have more info, especially in Chinese characters, why don't you send it over. it will be good to pool the information that you and my friend both have so far, who knows what may come out...

[lachinatown]

Welcome Huihanlie. Since you live in China, you can help answer some of the questions we have.

[philiptancl]

It would be great if Huihanlie could assist is some areas and the preliminary assistance that this Forum is trying help those coming to ask for help in their search for their Chinese ancestry. Once the preliminary data can establish, it is then to verify his ancestral village, to locate the relevant clan ancestral hall in the ancestral village/place and to seek out the ancestral records. As explained elsewhere going to China looking for the clan ancestral hall on your own without been sufficiently advised beforehand could be met with unhappy experience. In the approach we also need to be sensitive to people’s emotions and backgrounds, while at the same time to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers.

If the intention is just to get the ancestral records without actually going there to experience the environment where our ancestors originated from, to understand firsthand the rationale why they left their place of birth, and to meet up with current locals there, or due to some personal reason for not going there, it would be a cheaper option to get someone to do it for you. For those whose ancestors originated from Guangdong, especially around the Siyi Region of Xinhui, Taishan, Kaiping and Enping in the Pearl River Delta, an option is to employ the service of Henry’s nephew Tan Shi Cheng to undertake the search. However for those originating from Fujian, I had been hoping to find someone like Tan Shi Cheng who could provide a similar service and to whom I could recommend after seeking my help in obtaining the preliminary relevant information. From what I could gauge so far I think Huihanlie, through his My China Roots (http://www.mychinaroots.com/), may be able to file that role; judging from what he had managed to achieve for Nick of this Forum.

From what I understand Huihanlie (with a law degree and a post graduate program in international relations) left a comfortable, well-paying job as a Vice President at a successful multinational with a full expat package and benefits to devote full time in Chinese genealogy in helping people connect with their roots. Within that constraint it would only be equitable that he should be paid for his services rendered so that he would be able sustain himself and his family in Beijing. Whilst Tan Shi Cheng is doing it part-time (as he has his own business to sustain him), I am wondering Huihanlie, doing this fulltime, could be sustainable over the long run.

The way as I see it, the services of Tan Shi Cheng and Huihanlie complement whatever the free services that this Forum could provide.

[lachinatown]

Thank you Philip for giving it a proper perspective.

[huihanlie]

Thanks Philip for your post, your understanding and your support!

For Michel, just so that there are no misunderstandings, although I indeed started a company that provides roots-related services for a fee, i was offering my help to you without expecting any pay. if you have historical family documents at hand, i would love to look at them and compare them with what info my good friend already has, with the hope that there may be a chance that something could come out (one never knows...).

For Philip and Lachinatown, if there in general are cases where roots-seekers are in the early phases of their research, and i can easily help out by giving advice (essentially in the same way that you and other moderators of the forum are already doing brilliantly), i would love to do so. as Philip says, when the research will go more in depth, and travel, document translation or summaries, report writing, or guide services for ancestral village visits are required, then i hope you understand that My China Roots will ask for a fee.

One of the initiatives that we are working on, is to establish our My China Roots Young Researcher Pool, which essentially will function as an army of "Henry's nephews" across southern China, who can help out with legwork and field research. This way, My China Roots will serve as a facilitator/middle man. This is one of the ways in which i am aiming to scale up the business so that more people can be helped around the world! (and, as per Philip's question, one of the several way in which i hope to make it more sustainable...:-))

[michel]

i Huihan and Phillip thank you for your reply. (btw I has a bachelor degree in international relations and currently studying a graduate degree in development, what a coincidence!)

Also about my family history, the first Shi was Shi Ho Long (施和(?) 1889-1974?) who came from Longxi, Fujian to Makassar, East Indies he was married with a chinese woman named Thio Goa Nio, his son Sie Ie Tjoan (施意(赚?),1929-2005)is my grandfather who was born in Makassar. but that's all I know. I unfortunately couldn't visit their graves at the moment therefore I'm unable to identify their Chinese name.


I got dutch side from my maternal grandmother and just recently finished the family tree (I've hit a wall since my ancestor was a dutch burgher - that was really unexpected). I have almanak that contain civil registration from dutch east indies, but probably useless to find chinese ancestors (the dutch genealogy websites are amazing)

I actually haven't seen any of my grandfather's and great grandfather's name. I only know our family surname in chinese, and I asked another people who share generational name. so according to the naming rules, here are the generation names:

my great grandparent: 和 (ho)
my grandparent: 意 (ie)
my father: 德 (tek)
me : 忠 (cong)
afterward: 良 (liang)
afterward : 报 (bao)
afterward: 恩  

since I only know my father's generation name, I assume my ancestors' probably followed the naming convention anyway. so yeah, the only name I haven't gotten is my my grandfather's and great grandparent's given name. I managed to get my grandparent's birth certificate, unfortunately it's in dutch. no clue of written chinese character. my great grandparent's birth certificate has long gone (which probably was written in chinese). I have asked my father and cousins to visit the family's grave. but it's hopeless. they see this activity as a waste of time. oh well, I can only depend on myself.




and here is the family photo, Sie ho long sat on the middle. I have another version with names, but I prefer to hide them from public. Btw, my great grandparent Sie Ie Tjoan was carrying his first daughter on the right side. on the left his wife, Thoeng Hong Tjoei was carrying my father. I think this picture was taken around 1952. My aunty said he barely understood Sie Ho Long because he talked in hokkien all the time, and many of my uncles and aunties were unable to get chinese education because Soeharto banned chinese education after 1966.

[michel]

also phillip, with my very limited knowledge of chinese character, I tried to google the chinese genealogy website. it seems there is some shi family information in this website (http://sinotree.org/jiapu/x105/0113.html), but doesn't seem has information about longhai city.

[philiptancl]

Hi Michel,

I can see that you have already quite some information that should help you greatly in tracing your ancestry. You now have the sequence of your generation names 和, 意, 德, 忠, 良,恩 which will form a important clue in locating the 施 clan in Longxi that you originated from. In recent years, some counties in Fujian are publishing the reference book of the county for all the surnames within it. The reference book provides the numbers of people of each surname in the various villages within the county, names of the various clans for each surname, the generation names of the various surname clans, their zupus and their year of updates. However I only have such reference books for Yongchun County (永春县姓氏志), Anxi (安溪姓氏志), Dehua County (德化县姓氏志) and Hui’an County, Series 1 (惠安姓氏志,第一辑) but I do not have that for the county in which Longxi is located. I also do not know whether one has been produced. Just last week I showed Dehua County (德化县姓氏志) to a colleague as his ancestor was from there. He found the generation names for his clan give in it, the name of his clan and the name of his ancestral record, his ancestral village name together with the number of people with his surname. In the book, it even mentioned the name of his grandfather stating he settled overseas. So knowing the generation names of your 施 clan is a good head start.

The important question is whether the 施 clan from your ancestral village still has the ancestral records or whether it was destroyed during the social-political movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. Should the ancestral records be destroyed, it is then whether you wish to undertake the task of doing extensive research to rebuild it again or whether the clan in the ancestral village has the resource and determination to so. My friend Erik Ng Poh Sing from Brunei did just that and he eventually returns the result of his compilation back to his ancestral village. I also heard of another case where the ancestral record existed in Indonesia and when it was eventually handed back to the ancestral hall in Fujian, the head of the clan wept with joy for he had not seen it for the previous 30 years. He thought it was lost forever.

On the basis that your ancestral record is available and you could eventually find it, you would then need to know your ancestors names in Chinese characters to determine where in the branch within family tree you are located. The Romanized characters for the names of your ancestors, Shi Ho Long, Thio Goa Nio, Sie Ie Tjoan and Thoeng Hong Tjoei (as written in Indonesia based on the Southern Fujian dialect (Minnan)) are known. Some of the characters in Chinese are also known. I had found that the Romanized characters in Southern Fujian dialect as written in Malaysia (with English influence) are quite different from that used in Indonesia and it would not be useful to find someone over here in Kuala Lumpur to guess the Chinese characters. Do you know of any one in Indonesia who can do that for you? If not yuminnan of this Forum might know of someone in Indonesia who could. In any case it would be best to ascertain the characters with those shown on the graves. Therefore do eventual try to get pictures of your ancestor’s graves.

You have to be extremely fortunate if you should eventually find your ancestral records from the Internet. If I were you, I would not depend upon it.

Philip