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Post by chakrajuices on Jan 2, 2019 4:53:34 GMT -5
Hi Fay, I have emailed the Kaiping Office and just today received a reply from them, below is my email to them and the Office reply: I will send them the photos I have and any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Dear Sophie Campbell,
Your letter has been received. At the past few days, We gone to the Chishui Town(赤水镇) for many times and talked with the government staffs and the elders in the village in order to search any information about your grandfather. But we are sorry to tell you that we couldn’t find any information about your ancestors . Would you please provide more information for us to help with the searching?
If there is any new information, please send email to us(kpswqj@*).
We are looking forward to your email.
Yours Sincerely
The Foreign & Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau of Kaiping City Guangdong
At 2018-12-17 13:24:54, "Sophie Campbell" <chakrajuices@gmail.com> wrote: To The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Kaiping,
I am trying to locate and find my Grandfather's family in China so that I can complete my Family Genealogy on our Chinese side.
I have attached a photo of my Grandfather's Headstone in hope that you can help me to locate his family.
My grandfather had a daughter who is my mother Joan Sylva nee Seto and another baby that died at birth along with my Grandmother his Maori wife Ani Kipa here in New Zealand.
image.png
We know he had a wife, two sons and a daughter in China and we believe his eldest son who was a school teacher was killed investigating a robbery at the school he worked at, although we are assuming he was a teacher in their local village. Our Grandfather did visit his home village a couple of times while working and living in New Zealand.
I truly hope your office can help me locate and find our living relatives in China.
Please contact me if you require further information - not that we have a lot but we do have some photos of his family.
With much gratitude and appreciation.
Kindest regards Sophie Campbell
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Post by FayChee on Jan 2, 2019 12:11:29 GMT -5
Hi Sophie,
Making contact with them is a major help.
If you send more information (other names used, immigration certificates, and photos with the Chinese Characters), they may have a better chance at finding your family.
Fay Chee
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Post by Doug 周 on Jan 3, 2019 7:51:18 GMT -5
... I have emailed the Kaiping Office and just today received a reply from them... Thanks for the feedback. So far, the Taishan Kaiping office of the Overseas Chinese office is the only office that responds by email to westerners about genealogy issues. Again consistent with the fact that 80% of the overseas Chinese in English speaking countries came from the SiYi (Taishan) region. (unsure about the UK. They might be more from Shandong because of the recruitment of Chinese during WW1.)
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Post by FayChee on Jan 4, 2019 13:23:36 GMT -5
This is a page from the book "Sons of the Soil" by Lily Lee & Ruth Lam and describes the Wing Hing & Co. Garden Market where You Quan Seto was employed (or was a partner?). I thought it would be a simple task to look in the Seto Zupu, Vol 3, for the 3 Git brothers, as I assumed that the Generational Name was "Git". So I used Google Translate to find the Characters for 'Git' and this is what I got........ 混帳 GIT 桂 GUI 巢穴 DEN 藝術 ART Unfortunately, I don't think that Git is correct as there are too many characters......also, I cannot find all these characters in the Zupu. Can someone please tell me the correct characters for "Git"? I am also assuming that the 'Git brothers' are Generation 23, since the son of Git Den is Eng Yew (?Generation 24-You)... Thank you, Fay Chee
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Post by chakrajuices on Jan 18, 2019 1:15:25 GMT -5
Hi everyone, I have been greatly blessed! Eddie Chen a friend visited my Grandfather's village and found his home and also his zupu! And spoke to one of his living relatives so now I can hopefully make contact with them directly through WeChat! I would like to sincerely express my gratitude and appreciation for EVERYONE'S help and will tell any of my friends who searching for their Chinese Ancestors to join this Forum, giving as much information they have and to try, try, and try again to find their ancestors. It has been an extremely heartwarming journey and I look forward to finding out my Grandfather's life story and sharing it with my Mum, Dad and siblings. And of course, the ultimate goal to visit his ancestral village myself one day too! Again, with much appreciation and gratitude. I look forward to one day helping others as each one of you have helped me. Sincerely
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Post by Doug 周 on Jan 18, 2019 8:49:10 GMT -5
Sophie, Congratulations! After only 3 months since you joined the forum, you met your initial family history goal. A testament to your persistence. This case was unusual because FayChee had a copy of one of the village’s jiapu; she was in touch with that keeper of the jiapu; you made contact with the Chinese Overseas office who searched but could not find information on your ancestor. It was finally the field work of Eddie Chen that had success. China is a huge country and even though there are only about 100 major surnames, each local clan has many lineages. Mao’s cultural revolution surely scattered these lineage zupus in the 1960’s and you couldn’t expect surviving documents to be all relocalized in any refurbished ancestral hall as generations before. Please share Eddie’s journey to your ancestral village so others can learn his techniques and be just as diligent as you.
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Post by FayChee on Jan 18, 2019 9:21:57 GMT -5
Wow! Fantastic ! I am so happy for you Sophie! So it looks like he was Generation 24 on the lower right of the page, with 4 children ?
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Post by FayChee on Jan 18, 2019 13:00:29 GMT -5
In the new Seto Zupu, it is in Volume 3, page 29, this is close to the beginning of the book and not where I thought Daijin Village was located (I searched pages 40 to 100). My Village is on page 37. Did Mr. Chen say the Village was definitely Daijin Li or a different one?............I tried using Google Translate for names: Generations 21 to 28: Generations 16 to 21:
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Post by chakrajuices on Jan 18, 2019 23:38:37 GMT -5
Hi Doug, I will be in contact with Eddie Chen next week and will certainly ask him of his journey to my GF's village and how he went about it.
I have not yet received any further email from the Kaiping Office yet and will share that once I do.
And any other information that I get I will happily share with others!
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Post by chakrajuices on Jan 18, 2019 23:48:07 GMT -5
Hi Fay, Yes, I am so excited to think I can speak to my mum's family is so, so exciting and I can't wait. And yes, my GF has 4 children including my mother and her 2 half brothers and 1 half sister. I hope to get more information about his first wife and children when Eddie Chen speaks to my cousins I will also ask Eddie about the village and send him copies of the zupu you have posted. Thank you Fay and there will certainly be a day that I visit my GF's ancestral village with my mum Thank you to everyone who graciously and happily helped me to find Grandfather's village/family!
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Post by jasonwu on Jan 19, 2019 4:27:46 GMT -5
Sophie,
Congrats on finding your roots! Hopefully, you will one day be able to see the village and meet your relatives in person!
FayChee,
Thank you for the annotations! I believe the man we are looking to identify is You Xuan instead of You Chuan - reason being, in our exchanges with Sophie, it's been mentioned that only one of her two half uncles went on to have children, and so the lineage shows Kai Zhe as an only child since his sister (who was female) and brother (who passed in childhood) were not included. The names of Sophie's half cousins, Jian Bang and Jian Wei, were written on the backs of the photographs sent to Sophie's grandfather.
Sophie's grandfather's name was written as You Xuan 佑旋 in the zupu instead of You Quan 佑荃 as in the tombstone. I'd be interested in finding out which of the second characters is correct, which had complicated our searching efforts in the zupu. Sophie, you may want to ask for evidence in an older handwritten zupu (if one exists), now that your lineage and relatives have been identified.
Through checking the zupus provided by FayChee, it's established that you two are 9th cousins, related through a common ancestor at the 16th generation - you are both of the 26th generation.
裔薰/裔芬一秉義一昌華一持立一名樂一應結一國會一傑扶一佑荃/佑旋一Sophie's Mother一Sophie 裔薰/裔芬一秉信一日英一持五一名教一應俸一國相一傑藹一佑德一啓業一FayChee
Sophie, notice how the ancestor's names all share a common character throughout the generations? This is the marriage name system that I mentioned earlier on in our PMs!
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Post by chakrajuices on Jan 19, 2019 6:19:12 GMT -5
Hi Jason, Yes, extremely exciting! Thank you so much for your help - really appreciated. I will ask Eddie Chen who was the gentleman that went to China and while there visited my GF's village. Yes, having the incorrect character certainly made it challenging for everyone. And Fay - how incredible is that - we're cousins! WOW! WOW!! WOW!!! Thanks for connecting us through our zupu Jason And yes, Jason thank you for your knowledge about our ancestors sharing a common character - pretty amazing! With gratitude and appreciation.
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Post by FayChee on Jan 19, 2019 9:17:39 GMT -5
Hi Sophie and Jason, Sorry I fell asleep and forgot to sign-off. I will correct the chart to show that You Xuan is your grandfather. You can download and print the charts to send to your relatives. Although I was able to track your Ancestors back to Generation 16 (Yi Xun), I could not find Yi Xun in Volume 1 in order to continue from G16 to earlier. I will try again today. Many thanks to all! Fay Chee Below is the corrected chart and I also changed it in the previous post:
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Post by Doug 周 on Jan 19, 2019 9:32:43 GMT -5
... Sophie's grandfather's name was written as You Xuan 佑旋 in the zupu instead of You Quan 佑荃 as in the tombstone. ... The written names have contradictions. How did Eddie Chen work out the discrepancy? Thanks jasonwu for the explanation.One tries to figure out these genealogical mysteries based on best evidence. And all that work FayChee did based on the wrong given name. As a fellow Chinese language illiterate, searching for characters makes me crossed eyed. Again, the field work/ancestral village visit was the key.
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Post by FayChee on Jan 19, 2019 9:53:48 GMT -5
Hi Doug,
I had a great learning experience from all of this and gained much needed experience, especially with learning to use the Translation Apps and WeChat!
I'm ready for the next great adventure now!
Jason,
I always learn so much from your fantastic insights into the Chinese language.....I just saw your comparisons of my lineage with Sophie's and I never would have seen the correlations! It's fantastic!
I have not been able to trace Sophie's lineage further back from G16 in the new Volume 1. I found 4 pages with Yi Zhen at G16, but no Yi Xun.....I wonder if there is a typographical error somewhere? I can post the 4 pages if you want to take a look.
Fay Chee
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