Researching my Amoy ancestry

[hodge26]

Hello

I'm seeking assistance in identifying my Great great great grandfathers name. The below image is taken from his will before he died in Queensland in 1888.


 

He was registered as Cong Dee and with the poor record keeping of the 1800 is not reliable. The records show that he was born in Xiamen around 1838 to parents Ching and Ai. 

I'm hoping with the correct name I can then commence further researching into his ancestry.

Kind regards
Chris

   

[jeremychin]

Chris,

The name you supplied is 廣池. Not just poor record keeping, but romanizations of names into English make it more or less a guessing game; it's good that you had the characters. Do you have a picture of his tombstone or know where he is buried? That is a great way to identify names and places of origin like the village name which could be written on the grave. Getting the village name in Chinese characters is key to starting your ancestral exploration. What is his/your surname?

- Jeremy

[lachinatown]

廣 Guang (Gwong) is your surname. Also may have been spelled as Kwong, Cong?.

link

[hodge26]

Thank you both for taking the time in helping me with this quest.

This has all started as the result of my DNA test showing my father line being Asian which makes up my 4% the rest is UK and Ireland ancestry and only 1/2 sibling to my known brothers and sisters.

Yes Jemmy, I do have a photo of his headstone erected by his Son In St Lawrence,Queensland. The only problem it is in English with no Chinese characters inscribe. It is going to be difficult in researching my great great great grandfathers ancestry but I'm pleased that I have found his correct surname.

The spelling of Kwong and Cong matches what I have been advised here in Australia and its great to have his true name at last.

With this information my surname is now Hodge, Cong, Guang.

Is it safe to say that his father's name is also Guang and not Ching as recorded of his death registration?
Could is parents names be 廣清 guang qing and 廣愛 guang ai?


Cheers



Chris

[jeremychin]

Hi Chris,

Given that your 3rd great grandfather has only one given name in addition to his surname, I think it is safe to assume that his parents are as you stated. However, as you only have told us the romanization of their names in your first post, where are you getting the characters 清 and 愛? Unless you have those characters written out somewhere on a document, I wouldn't say 100% that those are the right characters, but they are definitely good guesses. If you have a document with their information or Chinese character names on it, please share!

- Jeremy

[hodge26]

Alias Jeremy no such luck. I arrived at these characters using various internet translation tools entering the name of ching and receiving qing as the most likely match.

I think just knowing the correct surname will have to do for now as I will need a bit of luck to make any more inroads. With the correct surname at least gives me a reference point for any possible future DNA matches which may unearth the additional information to progress further and honour their memory.


Cheers -廣克里斯托弗