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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 23, 2022 10:36:29 GMT -5
I went to my Great Grand Parents grave in Indonesia this year and attached is the gravestone. As I do not understand Chinese would someone be able to help me translate what is written on the gravestone i.e. • Where in China did he and she come from? • What is his name? • What is his wife's name? • When is his date of birth and his wife's date of birth? • When did he pass away and his wife pass away? • Name of their sons and daughters? • Is there name any of grand children? • Any other useful information on the gravestone? Would appreciate it if anyone can help me with the translation. Thank you, KB Go.
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 24, 2022 1:18:17 GMT -5
The ancestral place is Shiqun (石囷). The grave was done in 1916.No date of birth or death was inscribed on the grave. So I expect dates of death would be before that. Name of person in the grave: 林振玉 Name of his wife: 余惜娘 Their sons are: 1. 讃德 2. 讃妙 3. 讃貴 Their daughters: 1. 鳳娘 2. 鵬娘 Their grandchildren: 1. 賢智 2. 賢仁 3. 賢元 4. 賢義 5. 賢全 Their great-grandchildren; 1. 永興 2. 安興 If the ancestral place is Shiqun (石囷), it could be the Shiqun (石囷) located west of Xiamen in Fujian as indicated below. As your surname is Lim/Lin (林), you should be descended from one of the Nine Dragons (九牧) of Fujian or their cousin. If you are interested I can post the chart from LIM Lu Gong (林祿公). I can also post the chart I recently designed and constructed for Tony King for the ancestry down from the First Dragon.
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 24, 2022 9:20:38 GMT -5
Hi Philip,
Thanks for the info, however I do not understand chinese characters. I would appreciate it if you could write the names into latin characters?
Could you please post the chart of LIM Lu Gong and the chart you constructed for Tony King as well?
Thank you very much,
KB Go.
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Post by Doug 周 on Nov 24, 2022 20:02:46 GMT -5
...I would appreciate it if you could write the names into latin characters?... KB Go, Philip has done the digitization of Chinese Characters for you, which is the hardest part of Chinese genealogy for us Chinese illiterates. These are proper nouns (names of people or places). Select, copy and paste the Chinese characters into Google Translate and it will give the official Chinese Romanization (Pinyin) Latin characters. These are also hints on pronunciation in Mandarin. Use other programs (like www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=chardict) for Cantonese Romanization (two popular ones are Jyutping and Yale). Since your elders are from Fujian, you might find Romanization tools for the various Fujian dialects, to get an indication of how your relatives pronounced your ancestor's name. IMHO, ~doug
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 24, 2022 22:55:50 GMT -5
Hi KB Go, You have all you need for you to search for your zupu in Fujian Province, Shiqun (石囷) village, if that is where your Lim/Liam/Lin (林) clan is from. As you are from Indonesia, I can give you a couple of my friends in Indonesia who you can talk to regarding finding your Chinese ancestry, i.e. if you are interested. In many cases, many who seek help tracing their ancestries would provide Romanized names, but not so in your case when you could provide the gravestone of your great-grandfather. For those searching for their Chinese roots, they could not depend on finding Chinese characters based on Romanized spelling. Romanization implies the transliteration of Chinese characters as spoken in the Chinese dialect to which a person belonged and how the name would sound in that dialect. In many cases, this did not follow any established system prevailing even if there is one. Even within precisely the same dialect from the same ancestral place in China, it also depends upon the country where one is doing so. In Malaysia, the transliteration is influenced by the British, in Indonesia by the Dutch, in the Philippines by the Spanish, and in Indochina by the French. For tracing the Chinese ancestry for others establishing the correct Chinese characters is essential but to deduce that based upon phonetic spelling without any knowledge of how the transliteration is commonly done among a specific dialect in a region within a specific country would be extremely difficult. In your case, this Forum already provided you with the hardest part, the names in Chinese characters, which you would require for your search. I'm afraid I don't know your areas of interest. Depending on your interest, the approach to achieving your objective could be adjusted accordingly. Your interest could be in one or more of the following areas: 1) In finding your ancestral lineage from your family all the way up to what the zupu (if zupu still exists) could provide? 2) In establishing contact with your clan members (however distant they are to you) who are still staying in your ancestral village? 3) In establishing contact with descendants of your clan members from all over the world and establish how each is related to one other. 4) In just visiting the ancestral place where your ancestor originated from? In my case, it was all of the above but under the current restrictions of movement in China, there is a limit of what you can do. If yours is to find your zupu, you can engage someone there to do it on your behalf. Below is the chart from LIM Lu Gong (林祿公) down to the Nine Dragons (九牧) and their cousin. There are two other charts before this that go all the way to Huang Di (2,697 BC). I have done the drafts of these two charts but I am awaiting Tong King of the US to provide the finalized details. Below is the chart for the Lim ancestry of Tony King paternal grandmother. It is from LIM Lu Gong (林祿公) down to Tony King’s grandchildren. Tony King has given me permission to show to others. From there you can see the number of generations that need to get from your Lim clan zupu to reach one of the Nine Dragons or their cousin. Philip Tan
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Post by Doug 周 on Nov 25, 2022 9:24:28 GMT -5
KB Go, Like Philip, I use the a Romanization method to help me recognize the proper noun. I recommend you copy all the characters Philip provided and paste them into a text or word processing file. I also recommend you convert any traditional character into simplified and also store them in your dictionary file. Use the zoom or font size feature of your program to enlarge the characters so you can compare them with any new Chinese characters you run across to see if they compare stroke for stroke. To me interpreting Chinese characters are like using rorschach.
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 26, 2022 9:46:51 GMT -5
Hi Doug,
Thanks for the recommendations and will try my best.
Have a good weekend,
KB Go
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 26, 2022 19:59:33 GMT -5
Hi Philip,
This is the first time I am trying to search for my zupu with very limited knowledge. It would be good if you can connect me with your friends in Indonesia for finding my Chinese ancestry.
Thanks for explaining the challenges for providing Romanized names. The reason for asking was because no one of my relatives in Indonesia know what the names of my great grand parents are. Your digitization of the Chinese characters is highly appreciated and will use available tools for translation.
My objectives of this search are:
1. The names of my great grand parents including their children and where they came from.
2. Great grand parents date of birth and date they died. Unfortunately, were not written on the grave.
3. Will try to search for my zupu, however not sure if I want to establish contact with descendants or even visiting them for now.
By the way, I have a general question on a different topic. I lost contact with my cousins in Guilin about 5 years ago. Since then, I am not able to call her phone (maybe phone number change) or when I send a letter through mail, I do not get any response.
Would this forum be able to let me know how to find their current addresses or their current phone numbers?
Thank you,
KB Go
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 26, 2022 21:55:55 GMT -5
Hi KB Go,
I forwarded four contacts from Indonesia who you can talk to and who know me.
Usually, people who first wanted to search for their ancestry would not have as much information as you already have, through the gravestone of your great-grandparents that you provided.
You said you lost contact with your cousins in Guilin. Can you provide their names in Chinese characters so that I can ask around to see if their current contacts can be located? Are they your first cousins (same grandparents) or second cousins (same great-grandparents)? Are they from your paternal or maternal side?
Is Guilin (桂林) the one from Guangxi (廣西)? Is your ancestry from Guilin (桂林), Guangxi (廣西) then?
As to the date of birth and date of death of your Lim great-grandparents, try looking at the ancestral tablets in your Lim “Rumah Abu” (Ancestral Hall) in Indonesia. There could be a secret compartment on the ancestral tablets where some documents could be concealed. Also, try searching for any documents left behind by your great-grandfather. If you can find the Lim zupu and his name there, you may be able to find his dates of birth, and time, and maybe that of your great-grandmother as well.
Philip Tan
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 27, 2022 18:40:04 GMT -5
Hi Philip, Thank you for providing me your contacts in Indonesia and will try to contact them soon. I start developing this family tree couple years ago from my grandma side which I believe is (鵬娘) the second daughter on your list. Then the issue is the Chinese character, and no one knows the Romanized spelling. Then I know this forum and get a very good response from you. Much appreciated. Regarding my cousins (woman and man) they are first level cousins from maternal side. They immigrated to China from Indonesia in 1960 with their parents. Until early 1990’s we communicated through mail and then from early 2000’s we communicated through phone until about 5 years ago. I attached the address that I use when writing letter to her and also her family picture (she, her husband, her daughter and her father). My cousin’s name is Tjan Siauw Tjing (circled in red). her husband Lou Zi Khan (circled in blue), her daughter Lu-lu (circled in green) and her father Tjan Gwan Ling in the middle. When she got married, she moved to Guilin where her husband lives. My other cousin is Tjan Djie Sien and his wife is Loen Ying also immigrated from Indonesia and their son is Tjan Khing Liong. I have no address nor telephone of them. You are right, it is Guilin from Guangxi. I will do a search for the Lim “Rumah Abu” in Indonesia and see what I can find. Thank you very much. KB Go
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 27, 2022 21:18:01 GMT -5
Hi KB Go,
You are providing their names using the Dutch system of transliteration of their names. As I said before, I think their names must be in Chinese characters before I could ask someone whether he would be able to find out from his contact whether he could do so. If their parents had passed away in Indonesia, try checking on their graves to see if the names of the children were inscribed thereon in Chinese characters. So you are referring to your cousins from the maternal side. So they are not of the same surname as you. The surname of your maternal cousin’s husband is Tjan. Based upon my experience dealing with those from Indonesia, the surname Tjan could be written as 曾. The Pinyin for 曾 is Zeng. In Hakka dialect of Malaysia, it is often transliterated as Chen. In Hokkien, it is often transliterated as Chan. Chen is the Pinyin for 陳. In Hakka dialect of Malaysia 陳 is transliterated as Chin, in Cantonese, it is Chan, in Southern Hokkien, Teochew, and Hainanese, it is Tan, and in Hockchew it is Ting. Chan is pinyin for 蟬. Tan is Pinyin for 譚. In Indonesia within the same dialect, they could be transliterated differently. Here we are only referring to surnames. When you come to the names themselves, the complications multiply. For those searching for their ancestry, you can understand why the need of having the names to be in Chinese characters.
I understand the difficult period for people of Chinese descent in Indonesia in the 1960s. There were various places specifically set up in Southern China to settle and accommodate these people repatriated there.
Philip Tan
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 28, 2022 11:07:45 GMT -5
Hi Philip, Yes, I am providing you the Dutch system transliteration of their names, therefore I attached the envelope that I use to mail her a letter with her address in Chinese characters hopefully you can find her name in the attachment. Her husband was born in China however I do not have the Chinese characters. I just found an old envelope that I received from her with the sender address. Hope this can help. Is there a possibility to trace people from her address postal code or telephone number? I understand this is a generic address which is probably where she or her husband worked or lived at that time. Thank you, KB Go
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 28, 2022 21:28:18 GMT -5
KB Go,
I forwarded the family photo and the envelope (with name and address) to my Lim cousin once removed (my cousin’s son) who in turn will ask his contact Guangxi to check. Hopefully, his other source in Yongchun could still be able to check.
Philip Tan
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Post by philiptancl on Nov 28, 2022 21:28:41 GMT -5
Delete
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Post by kbgo9491 on Nov 29, 2022 9:33:35 GMT -5
Much appreciated Philip. Looking forward receiving good news from your sources.
Best regards,
KB Go
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