Village DB Maps

[Henry]

Dear Colleagues,

Under Friends of Roots, the Village DB has been restored:

villagedb.friendsofroots.org/search.cgi

The Village DB has never had the the associated maps - I am posting them here. The person who assigned grid coordinate locations was not a cartographer - so there are some errors.

Enjoy,

Henry


Map Order:

Hoiping / Kaiping

Chungshan / Zhongshan

Sunwui/Xinhui

Toishan / Taishan

Attachments:

[Henry]

Toishan

[rufus]

Thank you VERY much, Henry!

[lachinatown]

I think these are the same ones posted on Village Database Maps^link

[Henry]

Hi lachinatown,

They probably are - I forgot I had shared them before. The point is that they are available :-)


Henry

[Henry]

Dear Colleagues,

Here is some information on the maps for the Village DB:

Finding the location of an ancestral village in the Village Database:

Please note that in the Village Database (DB), the only locational information provided is for the heung, an area within which a village is located.

For example, the location of Sam Hop /San He [三合 ] heung is given as FQ 7453. The locational information provided in the Village DB is a military grid coordinate reference - the FQ refers to the 100,000 meter square identification, and the location of the "74" is the Easting value and the "53" is the Northing value for Sam Hop /San He [ 三合 ] heung . Note that Sam Hop/San He is located within the grid cell of FQ 70, 50 referenced by the lower left (southwest) corner of the grid cell and that the "74" is an interpolated value between the vertical grid cell lines of "70" & "80" and similarly for "53" between the horizontal grid cell lines of "50" & "60".



Example


In the above chart, approximate geographic coordinates for the lower left corner of each grid cell is provided, for example, for FQ 70,50 - they are 22 degrees 9 minutes North (latitude) and 112 degrees 41 minutes East (longitude) - which will place the ancestral village within an approximate 6 square mile grid cell (5.4 miles on the X axis and 5.7 miles on the Y axis).
Each side of the grid cell is approximately 5 minutes in length and each minute has 60 seconds, hence, each side is approximately 300 seconds in size. Then to find the approximate geographic coordinates for FQ 7453:

In grid cell FQ 70,50 with a military coordinate Easting value of 74, multiply 4 by 30 seconds ( 300 seconds divided by 10 = 30 seconds ) and the result is 120 seconds and divide by 60 seconds and the result is 2 minutes, Therefore the approximate geographic coordinates for the Easting value of the military grid coordinates of FQ 7453 is 112 degrees 43 minutes. You would also perform this interpolation for the Northing value of 53, multiply 3 by 30 seconds and the result is 90 seconds and divide by 60 seconds and the result is 1 minute and 30 seconds, hence, the approximate geographic coordinates for the Northing value of 53 is 22 degrees 10 minutes 30 seconds N.

In Google Maps, you can cut & paste in the geographic coordinates expressed in decimal degrees and the cursor will move to the geographic coordinates for the heung and be within a grid cell that contains part or all of the heung within where the particular ancestral village is located. These geographic coordinates are a very rough approximation for locating the village within a 5 x 5 mile square area, or in the case of Hoiping / Kaiping, a 5 X 6 mile area. After locating the ancestral village - read off the exact geographic coordinates for the ancestral village by moving the cursor over the village location in the Google Maps - do a right click and click on " What is this " to get the geographic coordinates expressed in decimal degrees. In Google Map, as you zoom in and out - this will reveal more or less villages and their place names in Pinyin. Use can use the Google Translate to convert between traditional & simplified Chinese characters and to also get the Pinyin romanization / spelling.

Please note that there are various online conversions to convert between decimal & sexagesimal ( degrees minutes seconds ) coordinates

[ www.coolconversion.com/Degree-minute-second-DMS-to-Decimal-To-DMS ].

In cases where there are multiple villages with the same name - a village might be distinguished by the dominant clan surname for that village. In cases with multiple villages with the same village name and same clan surname, or the surname for the village is not known - the proximity to a particular market town will help to identify it. But, in the typical search, the county and province is already known, you will need just the Chinese names for the ancestral village and its nearest larger market town and the family surname helps to confirm the correct ancestral village.

The following are the grid lines & their values and associated approximated geographic coordinates - which should get you the the heung in which the ancestral villages is located:




Toishan / Taishan





Toishan / Taishan Insert



Hoiping / Kaiping




Sunwui / Xinhui





Chungshan / Zhongshan


Many of the reported grid cell coordinates for the heungs in Hoiping have been reversed, i.e., the person listed the Northing first and then the Easting - you can still locate the heung - but, the grid lines have been incorrectly labeled. Please see the corrected grid line values & associated geographic coordinates Hoiping ( Kaiping )below:




Correctly labeled grid line values and you can the associated geographic coordinates from the Hoiping / Kaiping grid chart above

[marlenel]

Hi Henry,

Where can I get Village Database for GQ. It is for the Heung, Ma Pak, with GQ1802 as the map location? Thanks.

[Henry]

Hi Marlene,

The Village DB had this instance of Ma Pak heung in Sunwui ( Xinhui ) county - primarily Chen/Chin villages within the Ma Pak heung. The given 100k designation of GQ was incorrect. It should have been not have been GQ, should have been GR. The map grid coordinate was correct and the Sunwui map shows Ma Pak at that location and cross referencing to the Sunwui grid chart with geographic coordinates - it falls in the grid cell 22 degrees 10 minutes N, 113 degrees 02 minutes E - when converted & expressed as decimal degrees - 22.5833 N 113.0333 E.

Go to Google Map and plug these decimal degree coordinates into the search box and you will see the Sunwui area and zoom in & out to get the Chinese names & Pinyin names of villages & places. The village you are seeking should be in this vicinity.

Remember that the Chinese characters used in Google Map are simplified Chinese characters. The Village DB uses traditional Chinese characters. So you will need Google Translate to convert the traditional to simplified Chinese characters. Searching with traditional Chinese characters in Google Map will not result in a match. Just because you do not see the village you are seeking - does not mean it is not located around there - its just that the map is not showing it because it may be a very small hamlet or the name in the Village DB is no longer in use. The village may have been renamed or absorbed in a larger cluster of villages & hamlets - which takes on the name of the largest village in the cluster.

Henry

[marlenel]

Thanks for the geographical coordinates for Ma Pak in Sunwui. From the Toishan grid, I was able to locate a couple of villages.

Marlene