Lum family Malaysia (grandpa origin from Sha Tou Guangzhou)

[benlum]

This site has given me hope of tracking my family. I was born in Malaysia but have now migrated to Australia. Before my dad passed away a few years ago, he left some information about where his father came from and the generation lineage names our family adhered to. He had in the past attempted to pass on these information to us but we were too young to care. It was only after his passing that my brothers and I felt we have a duty to preserve them for the future generations. Dad had some relatives from his father's side but had lost contact long ago (some in Penang and some in Kedah). It would be great if I can make connection with some of the 'lost' family. Another wish would be to find the Lum ancestral or clan house in Sha Tou, Guangzhou where my Grandpa was supposed to be from. The surname Lum is also spelt as Lam or Lim but the chinese character is a pair of "wood".My current generation character is "woman" on the left, and "mouth" on the right. I think someone who knows how to read and write chinese characters would understand what I mean. The character is pronounce as "Yue" in cantonese. The generation next generation after "Yue" is "Hug"/"Hark"/"Hak" or however you may want to spell it in english but its pronunication is similar to BLACK in cantonese. Anyone in Malaysia or China who could shed some light on my search?

[christielum]

My grandfather, "William" Sir Lum, was born in Canton, China around 1907 or 1908.  He was from maybe the same place that you speak of.  His daughter was born in China and when she came to the U.S., her paperwork listed her place of birth as:  Shan Tow, Sunwui, Kwangtung (Canton/Guangzhou), China.  I've seen different spellings of "Shan Tow" on paperwork so it may be spelled incorrectly, not sure.  Our last name is the Chinese wood character.

My grandfather came to Oregon around 1920 and as an adult moved to Alexandria, Virginia.  

I'm just now trying to understand the exact location/the village where he was born. It's somewhat confusing due to misspellings on paperwork and plus some of the location names have changed.  

Maybe this website will help you:  www.chinesefamilyhistory.org/ancestral-village-research.html

I am on 23andme and ancestry.com which has helped me connect to many relatives on my Caucasian side (1,200!), but none on my Chinese side.  I think they are really cool tools to use. 

Christie Lum

[Henry]

benlum & chistielum,

I suggest that both of you try to find the Chinese characters for the names of your ancestral villages and the name of the county in which it is located - which can be in English.

The majority of overseas Chinese buried outside of China usually have Chinese characters inscribed on their gravestones which provide their name & name of their ancestral village in Chinese - which is the basic information needed to acquire a village genealogy book that will provide you with the family lineage.

Henry

[christielum]

I was told our last name, Lum, was the wood/forest Chinese character but here is a picture of my grandfather, William Lum's, gravestone and the character looks a bit different (I think). Can you please read this for me Henry?

Thank you,
Christie

[Henry]

Christie,

Unfortunately, I am not Chinese literate, but, I can recognize some Chinese characters. If your surname is Lum the Chinese character should be: 林

Base on the Chinese characters for the location of your ancestral village, I believe I have located it on some maps for you below. It looks like your ancestral village of 古井 GuJing has increased in size so they now have a Lower GuJing - Xia GuJing and an Upper GuJing with ShanTou nearby.

Henry

[christielum]

Thank you so much, Henry. This is really great info.


Thank you!!!
Christie

[benlum]

Thank you Henry for your advice. I shall try to get a photo of the headstone (which is in Penang). I appreciate your response as it has been almost 2 years since I sought advice here. This renew my hope to find the answer. Thank you very much. Regards Ben.

[Henry]

Ben,

First generation overseas Chinese have a very common trait - they usually have all the important information about themselves inscribed on their gravestone, which usually includes, the province, county, and village where they were born.

If you have the Chinese name of your ancestor and the village name and if the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976) did not destroy the village genealogy book, then your ancestors & lineage can be found in the village genealogy book.

Historically, Cantonese people are a rather tough & hearty bunch and are known to defy orders from the emperors & government and would not give up their genealogy books - which is probably why it seems that Guangdong province and even Fujian province seem to have the highest incidence in the survival of village genealogy books.

Henry