|
Post by chinesesurname on May 11, 2015 13:39:17 GMT -5
The familysearch.org family tree supports surname first if the name is entered with the Chinese template. This provides Hanzi and Roman versions of prefix, surname, given name, and suffix. If leave empty or blank out the Roman version, a pinyin of the Hanzi will be supplied in the corresponding field. You may be familiar with my chinesesurname website, originally hosted on geocities.com starting in 1996, and now found at freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chinesesurname/. In it I document some information that I and some collaborators found about my ancestral surname, freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chinesesurname/s089.html. After making contact with my family association, I received a copy of the General Genealogy of the Ng Clan of Ling Nahm 《嶺南伍氏總譜》, compiled in 1933, and reprinted at a recent convention of the association. I am illiterate in Chinese, but with the aid of dictionaries and my parents, established that it traces the surname to the progenitors of the ancestral villages. With its assistance, I made trips back to the male line ancestral village, and made contact with the village chief, who was updating the village genealogy. After making a donation to the cause, and giving updated information, I later received a copy of, 崗美伍氏族譜, Gangmei Ng Surname Family Genealogy[http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:崗美伍氏族譜]. Recently, I was hand-entering my male line into familysearch.org. As you may know the familysearch family tree has only 2 levels of security, completely public in a single space for all people marked dead, and visible only to the account of the creator for all people designated living. The village genealogy has no dates accessible to me, but when I got to the progenitor, freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chinesesurname/lookwai.html , I entered his dates and found a match. I had known, that the LDS possessed a copy of the General Genealogy of the Ng Clan of Ling Nahm 《嶺南伍氏總譜》, and it seems that they bulk loaded it into the family tree. I had to merge my line in where it overlapped the point of the Gangmei village progenitor. I suggest, if you have a possibility that a genealogy useful to you may be in the LDS library, that you try searching in the familysearch family tree. Here, for example, is the progenitor, familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=LH8K-T2F&spouse=LH8K-TL7
|
|
|
Post by LJ on May 13, 2015 9:16:40 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, Thank you for your post and for creating the 崗美伍氏族譜 wikitree and the 伍 氓 (柱国) (1096-1152) family tree at FamilySearch.org. I was drawn to your post, because the maiden name of my maternal grandmother's mother and the surname of my maternal grandfather were also Ng. On your Look Wai House, Eng Suey Sun, of Taishan, Guangdong webpage, you refer to the genealogy book, Genealogy of the Nine Lineages of the Ng Clan 《伍氏九族家譜》. Did you enter every ancestor in that book into your 伍 氓 (柱国) (1096-1152) family tree? If you did, then you have done a monumental job! Incidentally, I notice that you identified the General Genealogy of the Ng Clan of Ling Nahm and the Gangmei Ng Surname Family Genealogy with the same characters, 嶺南伍氏總譜. Are the two genealogies one and the same? And in your paternal grandfather Mun-Wei Ng's entry in your wikitree, the Chinese characters for his given(?) name is 文慰, but on page 92 of the 崗美伍氏族譜, the characters are 文尉. Is the former an embellishment of the latter? Best regards, LJeung
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 17, 2015 4:36:16 GMT -5
The Lingnam names are tagged as entered by Family Search, as implied by my post. I entered the Gangmei lines. Notice the first two characters of the genealogies are different. The one for Gangmei has the Mei character, "beautiful" that also occurs in the the Chinese name for the USA, "Beautiful Country". I will have to check the characters for my grandfather. If they differ, one version came from my father based on memory or letters, and the other from the genealogy. Or maybe I made a mistake. The Gangmei genealogy has a different version of my Dad's name than the one he used, but he came to USA at 12 as an orphan, so the the fact that one of the characters of his given name matches, and the names of his uncles matches is good enough for me.
|
|
|
Post by LJ on May 17, 2015 22:23:17 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, Thanks for clarifying. Upon revisiting the Lingnam genealogy at FamilySearch, I now see that the names were indeed entered by FamilySearch (I also see that some of the names were entered by individual members of FamilySearch). Even though you didn't enter the names from the Lingnam genealogy, you still have done a monumental job entering the Gangmei lines! Incidentally, I tried to locate the ancestor that connects the Gangmei tree to the larger Lingnam tree, but I was unsuccessful. I'm wondering, can you provide the name of that ancestor? I'd also like to see the General Genealogy of the Ng Clan of Ling Nahm 《嶺南伍氏總譜》. Is it available at FamilySearch? I also now see the difference between the titles of Lingnam and Gangmei genealogies. I'm illiterate in Chinese as well, so I didn't see the difference before. On your wikitree, I found only one version of your dad's name, 炳楊, which is the version in the Gangmei genealogy. What is the version that you dad used? While we're on the topic of multiple versions of names, I notice that your paternal grandmother's surname is 周 (Chau, Chow/Zhou) on Gangmei genealogy page 92 and 謝 (Der, Tse/Xie) on your wikitree. Best regards, LJeung
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 20, 2015 3:29:08 GMT -5
The Gangmei genealogy marks two men as residing at Gangmei. I assume the first is the immigrant, and the the second is the first one born in Gangmei. The descendants on my line are tagged as created by ronengyoung@gmail.com rather than by familysearch. I assume they should match the notes I put on my copy of the general genealogy tracing this line, which terminates each line at the village founder. There is another volume arranged by village, which lists the Ng villages. I haven't had time to recheck this source. Gregory Kimm, who is bilingual, told me that the LDS a microfilm of at least some part of this document. There are a lot of pages. Familysearch has my Dad's Chinese name as he gave it to me. My dad gave me the Der name. I don't know what is real or not. My grandfather was a sojourner to California with children born many years apart. The first to daughters were born in Gangmei, but the last two were born in Jianghe, Taishan, near Gongyi, for convenience in commuting between China and California. My Dad was youngest. There is another brother listed on the genealogy that he was not aware of. When my Dad came to America in 1922, he was an orphan. When his father returned for the first time after he was born he contracted a communicable disease, and his mother sent my Dad away so she could take care of her husband, resulting in the loss of both.
|
|
|
Post by LJ on May 20, 2015 17:21:38 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, Thanks for the additional information. This will definitely help me with my search. On your line, I see that the descendant (or depending on your view, ancestor) entries that you created starts at 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung), but looking at their histories, I see that they are edits of the ones created by FamilySearch up to 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan). The two men who resided in Gangmei must've been 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung) and 伍馬誼 (NG Ma I). ...the notes I put on my copy of the general genealogy tracing this line... Do you mean your wikitree and your notes on that tree? If so, I see that your wikitree only goes back to 重大伍 (Jung Daai Ng). You refer to it as your copy of the general genealogy. Are you planning to add the rest of your line? Which online family tree program do you prefer, FamilySearch or WikiTree? ...the general genealogy tracing this line, which terminates each line at the village founder. FamilySearch terminates your line at 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan), so is he, rather than 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung), considered your village founder? A few months ago, I downloaded a number of pages of the 伍氏合族總譜 (Ng/Wu Clan Combined Clan General Chart) from FamilySearch's China Collection of Genealogies, 1239-2014 > Wu 伍 > China 中國 > Guangdong 廣東. And since then, I've been sporadically analyzing them to find my grandfather's lineage. I think I've made some progress: A couple of nights ago, I found the name of the ancestor who began the move (始遷祖) of Ngs to Leliu (勒流), Shunde (顺德), in Image 203 of the 伍氏合族總譜[10卷, 首2卷] 15冊 10-15冊(卷6-10), 1933 {Ng/Wu Clan Combined Clan General Chart [10 Volumes, First 2 Volumes] 15 Books 10-15 Books (Volumes 6-10)}. His name was 則忠 (Chak Chung/Zezhong), and he was a descendant of the fifth-generation Guangdong Ng ancestor, 天成 (Tin Sing/Tiancheng). I found out more about him in Image 469 and Image 486 of 伍氏合族總譜[10卷, 首2卷] : 15冊 : 1-9冊(卷首-卷5), 1933 {Ng/Wu Clan Combined Clan General Chart [10 Volumes, First 2 Volumes] 15 Books 1-9 Books (Volumes 1st-5)}: He was Tin Sing's great-grandson. The name Chak Chung was his 字 (tze/zi) name. His primary name in the genealogy is 益寬 (Yick Foon/Yikuan), and his 號 (ho/hao) name was 斗軒 (Tau Hin/Douxuan). And the specific place that he began the move of Ngs to, in Leliu, is called Shayong (沙湧). So, he was the founder of Shayong. However, I'm not sure what Shayong is, whether it's a village, hamlet, or neighborhood. I also found him in FamilySearch's Ng tree, but his line doesn't terminate with him. Instead, it continues from him for many generations, branching many times over. At the moment, I don't know which branch my grandfather belongs to, as I didn't find his and his father's names in the tree, and I haven't found their names in FamilySearch's China Collection of Genealogies for the Wus of Guangdong, China. Do you have the title of the volume arranged by village? Maybe the LDS has already posted it online in the Guangdong Wu genealogy collection. Did you find your father's Chinese name in the genealogy collection? You might be able to find out what your father's mother's real surname was. If you have a chance to visit Gangmei again and find her grave, you might find her real last name on the inscriptions on her gravestone. Thank you for telling the story about your father losing his parents. It's so sad. But it shows how dedicated and loving your father's mother was to her family. Best regards, LJeung
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 23, 2015 3:51:22 GMT -5
I'm on my iPad and I lost what I wrote when I switched to other screens trying to research my reply. It will have to come back later when I have access to my computer and the genealogies. My Wikitree only goes back to the pages that I uploaded to the Gangmei genealogy page I created. None of it is in the general genealogy. On Familysearch, I uploaded just the names from Gangmei genealogy until I got a hit with Mung, the founder of the Lookwai House. I then had to merge my duplicates with those originally entered by Familysearch , I believe ending at the progenitor of Gangmei. Mung is generation 49. My Dad is around generation 73. I give generation numbers in my tree on geni.com. There the names are intermixed Cantonese and characters. I will send the link in a later message so as not to lose this thought.
Did you check the names entered that you did not expect to see if they were bulk loaded by Familysearch without evidence of contactable editors?
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 23, 2015 4:05:02 GMT -5
My grandfather is on geni.com at www.geni.com/people/Mun-Wei-文慰-NG-伍/6000000000608898148I entered the direct line all the way back, with the names in a non-standard manner, so I do not know if they overlap with anything else on geni.com. On family search, I think anybody born in China should be entered with their Chinese name using the Chinese template as primary. Geni.com now has a Chinese entry field, but because of gedcom export incompatibilities there is not yet an adopted standard for how Chinese names should be entered. Maybe Doug, who is also active there, has a comment?
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 23, 2015 12:22:31 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by chinesesurname on May 26, 2015 17:45:08 GMT -5
Thanks for locating the online version of the General Genealogy. The family tree charts are in only one of the 15 volumes. I had previously taken a copy of the 1983 reprint. The online version is actually clearer. The reprints were made by unbinding and opening up the pages, which are numbered only on the fold, with the left and right edges inside the binding after folding the printed sheet. Two such sheets were then imaged on a single page, and reproduced the modern way. The volume listing the villages should be somewhere. I understand there are also volumes listing cemeteries and temples. I stumbled on the village because I was looking for the characters, and the county characters keep repeating. I have now sourced the ancestors from Mung, the founder of the Lookwai house to the founder of Gangmei, Kaiping at generation 58 on image 479. I haven't had time to look in my paper copy to get a hint how to find it in the online version. I'll probably work on the sourcing of the Gangmei tree first,
|
|
|
Post by Doug 周 on May 29, 2015 20:17:53 GMT -5
Time to update this thread, knowing that it was started over ½ a decade ago. Five years is an eternity in the tech world. The trend is to use online genealogy programs. Online programs are convenient and are accessible from many different platforms including desk/laptop workstations to mobile internet devices. This will not be an attempt to discuss onsite (residing on your personal storage drive) genealogy programs even though there are several onsite programs which publishes to the internet. There are two distinct sponsorships of online genealogy sites. Those controlled by private individuals and those controlled by an organization. If you are geeky or are lucky enough to have a relative set up a private online genealogy program then you have more opportunities to solve the conundrums discussed here. Focusing only on those programs sponsored by organizations, a few examples include Geni.com, Myheritage.com (the latter has acquired the former), Ancestry.com, Wikitree.com, Dazupu.net, and Familysearch.org. All have mission statement and business plans which might conflict with the genealogist. Most significantly, the participating genealogist is expected to ‘donate’ the family tree information into the organization’s databases. This gift is in exchange for freely using their web site to organize, understand, structure, archive, and share family heritage information; one can add and share various media and messages, and collaborate with other potential relatives. Having users who share their large family trees allow the organizations to increase traffic to their site. The introductory price is usually free. The organizations entice continued loyalty and subscription fees by offering both automated matching with other user’s family trees, research into collective archives such as census records, passenger manifests, and other vital statistics, ease of social media sharing, and DNA services. Familysearch.org is an LDS (Latter Day Saint or Mormon) site and is opened to non-church members. Core to the LDS interest in genealogy is that discovery of your family heritage allows ancestors to be proxy baptized into the church. The extended family is then rejoined in heaven. The LDS have the oldest western and eurocentric archive of genealogy stored in a vault near Granite Mountain outside of Salt Lake City, UT. Since 2002, they have been indexing their archives to allow online search. The indexed Chinese genealogies include jiapu/zupu’s from the Hong Kong and Columbia libraries, and from private collections. The cost for initial entry into these services is very low (free) and but includes the time cost of you inputting your family tree data. This is a great way for newbies to learn how a family tree is organized and the verbiage in discussing the data element like adoptions, types of marriages, and relationships. The only thing keeping one from using multiple different sites is the time it takes to enter one’s information; automatic uploads are infrequently and incompletely supported. The low initial cost allows one to explore the differences in each site. Many people utilize the research archives of Ancestry.com. The combination of Myheritage.com /Geni.com allows robotic matching to other user’s family trees. Familysearch.org has provided the longest term solution to storing (archiving) of ones family heritage research. As these sites evolve, types of services tend to coalescence. I have given up reviewing the details of each individual online program. These are actively evolving computer software, revised and coded by brilliant young software engineers. They have the feedback of thousands of experienced genealogist; new features are implemented and fine tuned as these programs evolve and mature. Let me update my thoughts if one want to experiment with these program. Again, the positives are the low entry cost, the ease of use with a shallow learning curve, and no maintenance like backing up. Sharing media and timelines, much like Facebook, are emphasized - You donate your family tree information. This is a core principle of ‘genealogy’ organizations. We all remember the firestorm when Facebook explicitly stated your profile never is expunged. Those in the Google ecosystem also realize that your profile and data is essential to their business practice. These ‘genealogy’ sites operate in the same modus; data is access to revenue.
- Don’t plan to use the program as an archive of your precious media. Again, like your data, once the media is donated, it is very difficult to retrieve. Plan to archive your media shared on these sites via a different method (usually a personal storage drive).
- Deceased ancestors are public domain; living relatives are private. This means that other users can view the decedants and are allowed to merge these profiles into their own family trees; others can edit the profiles you had entered. These users may not meet your standard of proof and documentation, but this sharing of family tree information is a standard operating premise of the online family tree programs. The corollary of ease of making changes is lost of control of your donated family tree information.
- The magic number is 300. That is how many profiles you can manually comfortably input. More than 300 profiles, and the need to reproduce your family tree onto another site is onerous. If the sponsoring organization goes out of business or makes a major change in their business/mission statement, you can re-input 300 profiles relatively easily.
Here are two Chinese Genealogy Forum posts bemoaning the changes in terms-of-services of two online genealogy programs
- Dynastree is kaput; needs of software program
Update: As of a couple days ago, Geni.com officially SUCKS. (parsed) We know that Geni.com was purchased by MyHeritage.com. Ancestry.com was sold in 2012 and there are rumors of another pending sale.
- Exclusive: Genealogy website Ancestry.com explores sale: sources
- Try to download a GEDCOM of your family tree information. The GEDCOM is the DNA of your family tree, and is the current version 5.5.1 <10 year old de-facto standard for genealogy information transfer. Unfortunately, every program will use a different dialect of GEDCOM. Exporting an accurate GEDCOM allows easier loss of potential customers, and might be against the organization’s mission statement/business plan. I have discussed in other post in this software section about how to read and verify the accuracy of your GEDCOM.
- If your site offers online resources like census records, ship manifest, etc, make sure you download a copy for your media archive on your personal storage drive.
- Your family tree is not just a line chart. There will be explanations and rationales necessary to explain discrepancies. There are stories to be told and saved.
- chinesesurname writes above an explanation of possible discrepancies based on his studied analysis of the records. It is in response to an inquiry from a potential relative LJ. It is this type of discussion which is important to store in your genealogical archives. As the program coding evolves and is updated, you want to make sure that your information is included in your future family tree display. The programmer may choose to omit important information because it did not fit the the coder’s format. Your data might be lost.
- Another example is the practice amongst Geni.com users to include the Chinese characters in the same name field as the English given and surname. Sometimes the user inputs the generation number in the name field for display clarity. These workarounds (adapting to the rigid database-field-structure of the computer program to better display your data) are innovative ways to use Geni.com. Hopefully, future updates by their programmers will not lose this data.
- Lifeboat. Family historians do a lot of work on their family tree. They prune and trim, study and apply their zupu/jiapu, translate Chinese passages, interview elders, tease the multiple names of ancestors, work out the female lineage via extraordinary research. Genealogist want that work preserved so that 100 years from now, when their great-great-grand-descendent reviews the genealogical information, they would have a full understanding of the rationale. Will Ancestry.com or Wikitree.com still be around, with the information intact? kerry opened this discussion on another forum:
- Requirements for a lifeboat for my webtrees® site
- Familysearch.org has the longest track record for genealogy sites. I would agree with the last post to use Familysearch.org as your lifeboat. However, remember in 1995 there was controversy about the LDS baptizing Holocaust victims; your religious beliefs might be at odds with this mentality.
Here is a wish list for any genealogy software program for Chinese family heritage. Very few online genealogy organizations will have these features. One thing not on the wish list is the ability to display Chinese characters correctly (Unicode). Most modern programs will display Chinese characters correctly. - Let you decide when to display surname first. Some programs make it an all or none affair. For example, if you display the Chinese characters surname first, then your English name is also surname first. This is important if you want your information to be culturally sensitive to readers in China. It is similar to the display of American dates as MM/DD/YYYY rather than the international standard of YYYY/MM/DD. The main purpose is to make your display as culturally comfortably so it can attract new users (cousin bait) to contribute to your family tree.
- Handle multiple names for people and places without employing workarounds. Maiden names, married names, nicknames are common western data-fields similar (but not equivalent) to the Zi 字, Hao 號, Hui 諱 and milk 乳 names of Chinese ancestors.
- Conversion between simplified and traditional characters.
- Generation number calculator.
- Display lineage charts with older generations at the top to younger generations at the bottom.
- Conversion between Chinese lunar imperial and western gregorian calendar.
- Chinese Optical Character Recognition program (both traditional and simplified)
- Soundex for phonetic spelling (would be extra nice if it included the dialects of SiYi and Zhongshan)
- Robust method to handle sources, which is not always important to newbies (not just Chinese genealogy)
- Google or Baidu map integration
Summary: There is no family tree programs (neither online nor onsite) have which have all the features to make a perfect Chinese genealogy software program. Protect your information, using the methods discussed. Enjoy yourself as you study and build your family tree. IMHO
|
|
|
Post by fonny on Oct 2, 2015 14:32:28 GMT -5
Dear Doug, surname伍,Lieung Thanks for the informatoion discuss. It is very informative. Fonny
|
|
|
Post by LJ on Oct 10, 2015 4:24:31 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, Sorry I took so long to reply. I'm on my iPad and I lost what I wrote when I switched to other screens trying to research my reply. It will have to come back later when I have access to my computer and the genealogies. I'm sorry you lost what you had written on your iPad when you switched to other screens. I hope it came back later and was included in your later posts. Before I address the rest of your post, I need to correct an error and clarify an unclear statement in my previous post: On your line, I see that the descendant (or depending on your view, ancestor) entries that you created starts at 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung), but looking at their histories, I see that they are edits of the ones created by FamilySearch up to 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan). By this, I meant, "On your line going back to 伍氓 (Ng Mung), I see that the descendant (or depending on one's view, ancestor) entries that you created start at 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung), and that the entries between 伍氓 (Ng Mung) (柱国) and 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan) were originally added by FamilySearch, and some of these were edited by you". The two men who resided in Gangmei must've been 伍乾長 (NG Gon Cheung) and 伍馬誼 (NG Ma I). By 伍馬誼 (NG Ma I), I meant NG Gon Cheung's father 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan). ...the notes I put on my copy of the general genealogy tracing this line... Do you mean your wikitree and your notes on that tree? If so, I see that your wikitree only goes back to 重大伍 (Jung Daai Ng). You refer to it as your copy of the general genealogy. Are you planning to add the rest of your line? My Wikitree only goes back to the pages that I uploaded to the Gangmei genealogy page I created. None of it is in the general genealogy. On Familysearch, I uploaded just the names from Gangmei genealogy until I got a hit with Mung, the founder of the Lookwai House. I then had to merge my duplicates with those originally entered by Familysearch , I believe ending at the progenitor of Gangmei. Mung is generation 49. My Dad is around generation 73. Thanks for the clarification. I now see that by "my copy of the general genealogy", you meant your reprinted copy of the General Genealogy of the Ng Clan of Ling Nahm 《嶺南伍氏總譜》, not your WikiTree. When you put your notes on this copy, did you put them in as bookmarkers or post-its? Or did you...write them into the copy? The pages that you uploaded to WikiTree and are referring to in the above quote must be 崗美伍氏族譜 Inside Title Page and 崗美伍氏族譜 page 80 of Gangmei Genealogy. I give generation numbers in my tree on geni.com. There the names are intermixed Cantonese and characters. I will send the link in a later message so as not to lose this thought. Thank you for sending the link in a later message. I will look for it. Did you check the names entered that you did not expect to see if they were bulk loaded by Familysearch without evidence of contactable editors? Yes, I checked the names entered at Familysearch to see if they were bulk-loaded by FamilySearch. As I mentioned earlier, I saw that the ones between 伍氓 (柱国) and 伍勢寬 (NG Shai Pan) were originally added by FamilySearch, although I am not quite sure if they were bulk-loaded rather entered by hand. Best regards, LJeung
|
|
|
Post by LJ on Oct 10, 2015 4:45:42 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, My grandfather is on geni.com at www.geni.com/people/Mun-Wei-文慰-NG-伍/6000000000608898148I entered the direct line all the way back, with the names in a non-standard manner, so I do not know if they overlap with anything else on geni.com. On family search, I think anybody born in China should be entered with their Chinese name using the Chinese template as primary. Geni.com now has a Chinese entry field, but because of gedcom export incompatibilities there is not yet an adopted standard for how Chinese names should be entered. Maybe Doug, who is also active there, has a comment? Thank you for the link to your tree at Geni. When you say gedcom export incompatibilities, do you mean incompatibilities in gedcom files exported from Geni? Does FamilySearch not have this problem because it does not support exporting gedcom files? My Dad is around generation 73. From your Geni tree, I now see that your dad is indeed of generation 73. By the way, which online family tree program do you prefer, FamilySearch, Geni, or WikiTree? Best regards, LJeung
|
|
|
Post by LJ on Oct 10, 2015 13:28:11 GMT -5
Hi chinesesurname, Thanks for uploading the images to your 崗美伍氏族譜 (Gangmei Ng Surname Family Genealogy) site at WikiTree and using it as the source for your line at WikiTree and FamilySearch. Looking at pages 38 and 40, I now see that the name of the founder is 乾長 (Gon Cheung). Best regards, LJeung
|
|