Ngon Ho 銀河 Village, Toisaan

[ngonho]

Greetings,

I'm researching my genealogy. It's been difficult but after finally viewing arrival case files at the Nat'l Archives, I've found that my great grandfather born in San Francisco, CA in the 1870s made several trips back to China, the first one with both his parents.

The surname is "Lee" 李 and the village is 銀河 (Ngon Ho/Yan He Cun) in 企嶺鄉 / Kay Ling Heung.

Does anyone know if this ancestral village still exists?
Villages nearby included: 松柏 / Chung Pak or Song Bo in pinyin and
梅溪 / Mui Kai / Méi Qī aka 松梅 / Chung Mui / Sōng Méi. These village names were mentioned innumerable times in the case files.

I've located 企嶺鄉 on an older map of Toisan, but do not know where that relates to modern Toisan/Taishan, Guangdong.

I have reading ability in Chinese, and speak some Mandarin and Cantonese but not Toisanese.

If you know whether 銀河 still exists in the area neighboring the old Taishan Cheng/Toisan City, please let me know.

Thank you for your time!

[Henry]

Welcome to the Forum,

I believe your ancestral village is the village that I point to in the map below. The Village DB has it as "Ngan Ho", however, the Chinese character for "Ngan" appears to be a simplified character - it is near Chung Mui village.

The bar scale at the bottom left corner shows the distance to be .4 km

Henry

[Ah Gin]

ngonho,

To build on Henry's posting, the Traditional and Simplified characters for Ngon Ho are as follows: 銀河 银河 The general locality seems to be a Lee area, as to the left of the English Word "Ngan Ho", there is a school in memory / honour of a Lee? Happy hunting.

Regards, Ah Gin

[ngonho]

Henry and Ah Gin,

Thank you both for your assistance. I didn't know of the mapbar.com Chinese map website.

This is the exact ancestral village, as based on the original notes I've obtained, these village names appeared in various Americanized/romanized spellings in the arrival files.

I only found the traditional Chinese village name by chance in one of the documents and this helps verify it. As my grandfather was KIA in WWII while my father was just an infant, it was difficult to obtain any information regarding our history.

Thanks again. It's good to know that the village still exists and someone from our family may have established a school.

Our current generation is planning a trip to the village and this information makes it certain that we will be visiting the right place!

Many thanks - 謝謝!

[Henry]

Ngonho,

If you are planning a visit to your ancestral village, you may want to have some preparatory work done in advance so that your visit can be enjoyable and productive. Generally, overseas Chinese would like to know:

1 name and location of their ancestral village
2 determine if they still have relatives there
3 acquire a copy of their family / clan genealogy book

I believe item 1 has been determined - in order to resolve both 2 & 3, you will need the Chinese names for your grandfather and if possible, for your grandfather. Hopefully, you have your grandfather's Chinese name. If not, you will need to research any family letters, documents, etc.

With this Chinese name in hand, a researcher can visit the village and talk to the village chief and the researcher can acquire the family/clan genealogy book and this will provide you with your family lineage and also identify your relatives.

To try and do all this during a visit is highly unlikely and really needs to be done beforehand.

Another forum member, Ben Lee, no relation, he is really a Huang/Wong, recently went through this process. Please see his comments:

siyigenealogy.proboards28.com/index.cgi?board=names&action=display&thread=821

If you need help and would like to engage the services of my nephew - you can also contact him through me: [e-mail]



Henry

[laohuaqiao]

Feb 6, 2009 19:54:06 GMT -5 ngonho said:

I'm researching my genealogy. It's been difficult but after finally viewing arrival case files at the Nat'l Archives, I've found that my great grandfather born in San Francisco, CA in the 1870s made several trips back to China, the first one with both his parents.

Ngonho,
I smile whenever I read/hear of a case of Chinese American born in San Francisco before 1906.

The Chinese Exclusion Acts barred Americans of Chinese ancestry from bringing their foreign-born children to US, only native-born Chinese could. The great earthquake of 1906 triggered a fire which burned down San Francisco city hall and destroyed all birth records inside. That gave the Chinese immigrants the loophole needed to claim being native-born and bring their children and others over.

If you do pay a visit to your ancestral village, I hope you'll be able to speak to an elder who might be able to confirm where you ggf was born. It'll be a great story in any case.

The village noted in Henry's map is very close to Taishan City, 30 minutes walk(?). I've visited my home villages several times in recent years and on the way have actually passed by the road leading to Li Shutang school that Ahgin mentioned.

btw, my ggf was born in my home village in China and came to US on a merchant visa, but National Archives records also indicated he was born in SF.

[tyuti1668]

The character in the above map is NOT official, just common fast writing for 银 (for example: 反 for 飯/饭 in restaurant )
Official address in china post db is: 广东省台山市台城镇长岭村委会银河村 postal code :529211
松柏 / 松梅= same 村委會

[ngonho]

Thanks to all for your additional tips/help/information.

Yes, I wondered about my great grandfather's provenance. In his case file he had a number of documents notarized in 1892 and 1898 for reasons of securing letters to make his landing easier.

I asked the archivist about the veracity of his claim to being a native son since his birth certificate is merely a notarized typewritten certificate on very fragile paper. However, he said the documents dating from the 1890s were originals and definitely show their age.

To add to the confusion my greatgrandfather's main case file was in the Seattle archives, so that case file helped provide more info than the SF case file. He apparently was a resident and traveled via Seattle as much as he did via SF.

Anyone else have similar documents prior to 1906?

Thanks.

[laohuaqiao]

Ngonho,
It wouldn't surprise me that prior to 1906 some tried to obtain a certificate claim to be native born. I've been assuming your gggm was Chinese, was she? If she was and she was in US in the 1870s, that would be an even more remarkable story.

I came across this recently, pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4157636?n=60
Van Norden, Warner M. Who's who of the Chinese in New York. New York : Warner M. Van Norden, 1918, page 50.

"Lee Gum Poy-is a son of Lee Yick Deep, and was born in New York in 1900. Mr. Lee has attended the public and high schools of this city and studied art in the De Witt Clinton High School. At present he is attending Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY. During the taking of the State Military census in the Spring of this year, Mr. Lee offered his services and acted as secretary. He is a member of Chinese Boy Scouts.

Address- 32 Mott Street"

Lee Gum Poy finished his study in architecture design at Pratt, a 2-year program, in 1920. He later chose to go (return?) to China and was among the first wave of western trained architect in China.