Huang Clan - Canton (Guangzou) - 黃天霞

[rowan]

It has been a while since I have been here. I have been stuck on my research for years - due to the lack of documents I have.

A little back story:
My grandma was born in Indonesia (December 11, 1923) (during Dutch east colonies). She is 100% Chinese (in blood) and is from the Huang Clan. Her name: 黃天霞. I want to find more information about her parents, their names are: Luc Mi, Huang (father) and Tje Yong,Tjang (mother) the characters of their names are unknown. They travelled to Indonesia for business/trade. 

The story (not 100% confirmed) is that they went back to China around 1935 and my grandma later escaped the family because they arranged a marriage for her with a much older man.

The place in China her parents were born is: Canton (Guangzou). Now I believe that they were also burried there. I am looking for a Zupu from the Huang Clan (in Canton/Guangzou) or a website where I can search for gravestones (as I think my grandma's name must be mentioned in the Zupu or on her parents gravestone).

[gckimm]

Hi Rowan:

I'm afraid that without Chinese characters and more information about the origin of your Chinese ancestors, it will be very difficult to learn more.

I don't know where you live, but it might be more advantageous to you to search for the names of your great-grandparents in Indonesian records. Unfortunately, access to Indonesian records is very limited outside of Indonesia. Online sources such as Ancestry.com are not helpful unless your great-grandparents immigrated to the U.S. and there is some record of their entry into the country or what happened to them after that.

There are many Chinese in Indonesia who belong to the Huang clan, although some use a surname such as Oei, which is based on the pronunciation in the Fujian (Hokkien) dialect. There are various Huang clan associations in Indonesia but again, without the Chinese characters for the names and without the place of origin, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

See if you can find out where your great-grandparents are buried in Indonesia. The wonderful website Find a Grave has volunteers all over the world who will help to search for graves, and there are even volunteers in Indonesia. But they will need to know what cemetery to search. Here is a list of all the cemeteries in Indonesia that currently have some graves recorded: www.findagrave.com/cemetery/search?cemetery-name=&cemetery-loc=Indonesia&only-with-cemeteries=cemOnly&locationId=country_83&page=1#cem-2142819. I already checked and could not find your ancestors in any of them. If you can find the cemetery, you could make a request for one of the volunteers to search for the graves and photograph them.

Good luck!

Greg

[Henry]

Hi Rowan,

Since you know the names of your maternal great grandparents & that they travel between Indonesia and China. I suggest trying to check the passenger lists of ships for people traveling between these 2 countries for their names of any formal immigration documents online or family records during a particular time period.

The Family History Center in Indonesia that may be able to assist you: www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Malang_Indonesia_FamilySearch_Center

There is probably a Family History Center in the country where you reside, there are over 5,000 Family History Centers: www.familysearch.org/centers/locations/
They do not charge for their assistance and thru these centers you can access for free many online databases used for genealogy research that require a paid membership.

There are 4 Family History Centers in Hong Kong, none in Guangzhou: www.familysearch.org/centers/locations/

Here are 2 links that you might find useful:

www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a6a334.html

restofworld.org/2021/how-technology-is-reuniting-chinese-indonesians-with-their-ancestral-names/

The name of females are not listed in traditional Chinese genealogy books - they only list the clan of the wife and no daughters are listed. But during the past 20 years, some of the new or updated Chinese genealogies do include the names of women.

Henry

[rowan]

Hi Greg, Henry,

Thank you so much for your help. I think my great grandparents are burried in China (in Canton/Guangzou) - and that (maybe) my grandma’s name is mentioned on the tombstone there.

I am from the Netherlands! I have tried hiring a local from Indonesia to find the birth certificate of my grandma (but no luck so far). I have searched on Delpher as well - but I can seem to find anything. In the Netherlands (since Indonesia was colonized by it) we have a lot of communities to help with the tracing of our roots / a huge archive database. But there are no records of my grandma whatsoever.

Thank you for the resources, will look into it!