Looking for ancestoral village for GIN family
Aug 25, 2022 2:18:54 GMT -5
Post by trina on Aug 25, 2022 2:18:54 GMT -5
Hi All,
My name is Trina and I am from Australia. My father died when I was 12, and I have been looking for my chinese ancestors for over 30 years now.
I am told that if I find the village, I might be able to find records of them and I am looking for my grandfathers ancestral village - I have only heard that maybe the village burned down ? but really unsure as to what records are held.
This is what I am assured by Uncles is what the village was named and I know that my Great Grandfather's name was FOOK
The image is of what an Elder wrote Grandfathers name as - Can anyone please help ?
1. 台山 Toishan
2.同安鄉,聯安鄉 Tung On Heung, Luen On Heung
3.燕子覺 / Yin Tze Kok (甄 / Gin)
Below is a letter that my late Uncle sent me regarding finding records.
When your grandfather came out to Australia in 1882, he naturally couldn’t speak English, and even later when he had mastered a little, he always gave his name in the Chinese manner of surname first, which was GIN MENG KIM. Our surname should be rightfully GIN. This is in the SEE YUP dialect. Incidentally, the spelling is the anglicised version. In China, they have inflections and tones, which make it, sound different. In the Cantonese dialect, the character GIN is pronounced YAN. Spoken, it comes out YUN.
I have been trying to find someone old that comes from the TOYSAN district where we originated. They would all speak the SEE YUP dialect. When we were all born, my father gave us all a generation name, which is common in China, and even today some families still have generation names. Those names were kept in the temple in the village and people in the village could trace your ancestry back. My next-door neighbour tells me that the generation name was taken from a rhyme or something similar. All the males in our family have as our second name LOON. So your father would have been GIN LOON YON.
A little bit more historical background. My father came from the TOYSAN district that comprises of 4 areas in which all the people spoke the same SEE YUP dialect. You may see it written as SAY YUP the same as TOI SHAN. The area which my father came from, was the SUN NING area. Uncle Sluie can’t remember the name of the village in Chinese but translated into English – it means Swallows home or similar. That is why when I was a kid and the swallows used to build their nests under the veranda, he would never let me knock them down.
