|
Post by pchan on Sept 19, 2018 3:11:37 GMT -5
hello lachinatown and Jeremy. my cousin managed to call our auntie. She said the town is Siw Heng in Koyiu (Gaoyao). I cannot find Siw Heng. I suspect it is cantonese and unfortunately I don’t have it written in Chinese. can anyone help?
|
|
|
Post by pchan on Sept 19, 2018 3:13:09 GMT -5
also, she said there is now a bridge near the town..
|
|
|
Post by lachinatown on Sept 19, 2018 9:35:32 GMT -5
Xiao Xiang Zhen 小湘镇 (Siu Seung, in Cantonese) is located within Gaoyao (Koyiu), next to a river.
Another one is also next to a river: 水南镇 Shui Nan (Seui Naam in Cantonese)
It is very difficult if you don't have the Chinese name of the village or the town it is under.
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Sept 19, 2018 23:03:00 GMT -5
Nothing on your aunt's father's gravestone? Where was he buried in the US and what is his name? Maybe you can find his tombstone on findagrave.com... like lachinatown stated, without chinese characters or a specific village name, we are grasping at straws...
|
|
|
Post by genekl on Sept 20, 2018 8:31:08 GMT -5
Hello, just looking around and learning things. FYI the main town in Gaoyao is Zhaoqing which used to be romanized as Shiuhing according to a Wikipedia contributor. I suspect they do do not speak either Sanyi (Guangdong Baihua) or Siyi (Taishan etc) but more likely something related to the Yangjiang dialect of Cantonese.
BTW the website for the overseas affairs seems to have stopped activity about 2010.
|
|
|
Post by pchan on Sept 20, 2018 18:13:24 GMT -5
Hello, just looking around and learning things. FYI the main town in Gaoyao is Zhaoqing which used to be romanized as Shiuhing according to a Wikipedia contributor. I suspect they do do not speak either Sanyi (Guangdong Baihua) or Siyi (Taishan etc) but more likely something related to the Yangjiang dialect of Cantonese. BTW the website for the overseas affairs seems to have stopped activity about 2010. yep. my auntie clarified that the village was in Gaoyao “near” Siw Heng which could be Zhaoqing. they indeed speak Cantonese and I’ve no luck so far with the Guangdong overseas chinese dept
|
|
|
Post by lachinatown on Sept 20, 2018 20:57:52 GMT -5
Looks like we are going in a circle. 肇庆 Zhaoqing (Shiuhing, formerly romanized) = 高要 Gaoyao (former name), a prefecture-level city. 高要区 Gaoyao District is now within the 肇庆 Zhaoqing city. Now instead of looking for a village in Gaoyao District (a smaller area), we now need to look for a village within Zhaoqing city.
Are we talking about the capital city of Zhaoqing vs. the capital city of Gaoyao? They are each side of the river. So could it be that 高要市 (Gaoyaoshi) is your "village"?
|
|
|
Post by yohc88 on Apr 20, 2019 2:07:59 GMT -5
Do you still need help with info about gaoyao ? I may be able to help as my father is from gaoyao too
|
|
|
Post by Henry on Apr 21, 2019 9:44:44 GMT -5
pchan, Your cousin should ask your aunt for the Chinese characters of the ancestral village and nearest market town - this is the primary solution. If your grandfather emigrated to the US prior to 1955, there is a good chance that you can access his immigration documents: You may want to download the following two Excel spreadsheets for over 135,000 Chinese that came through San Francisco & Honolulu between 1881 - 1955. www.dropbox.com/s/ynniu1qze252jah/AllRecordsPart1.xls?dl=0www.dropbox.com/s/e1mj93dk1zxsknt/AllRecordsPart2.xls?dl=0You can search electronically for the names of your grandfather - try different combinations of their names to get a match. If you make a match, it may provide the romanized village name in the passenger list. When you find a record, the first 2 fields are important because they provide the Case Number ID & the Bin location where the records are stored. Then you can notify US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in San Bruno, CA just south of San Francisco and they can make copies of the records and send them to you. In many cases, there are photos and even written Chinese characters for the name and the ancestral village. Henry
|
|
|
Post by graham on Dec 5, 2019 6:57:15 GMT -5
This stuff is very confusing even when you've been there. My uncles headstone says he was from Guangdong, Gaoyao, LianTang village. The part you're missing is the village.
When I was there a few months ago I traveled through Zhaoqing (known as Siuhing in Cantonese before), crossed the river by bus into Gaoyao and then reached our village an hour later. There are quite a few villages or towns in Gaoyao so you need the village name.
|
|