kate
Member
Posts: 25
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Post by kate on Jan 20, 2011 20:49:48 GMT -5
Hi folks, I have been asked by a new Australian genealogy/history magazine (Inside History: www.insidehistory.com.au/) to put together an article about Chinese Australian family history research, with a particular focus on tracing families back to China. There seems to be a lot of general interest in the topic at the moment. I'm looking for a family to feature in the article, and would be interested to hear from anyone who would be willing to share their story with me (and the Australian public!). The family would be used as a case study, and provide a human face to the research journey. I'm specifically looking for an Australian family who have traced (or are tracing) their roots back to China. It would be great if you had also made a visit to your ancestral village. The magazine is full-colour, so it would also be good to be able to use some family photographs or documents as illustrations. If you've come up against an interesting hurdle in your research, please feel free to be in touch, as it might be helpful to others to hear your story. You can contact me directly by email: kate DOT bagnall AT gmail DOT com. Kind regards, Kate Dr Kate Bagnall Canberra, ACT chineseaustralia.org |
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Post by philiptancl on Jan 20, 2011 23:06:19 GMT -5
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Post by douglaslam on Jan 26, 2011 5:29:42 GMT -5
I have a friend from China who arrived in Sydney back in the late 1950s. His paternal great- grandmother was Irish, his grandmother was taken to China at a young age. This is not altogether unusual as I have met or heard about white people who were brought up in China.
I am likely to meet my friend on Sunday, I'll see if I could glean anything from him about his great-grandmother, a white Irish woman who married a Chinese in the nineteenth century.
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Post by helen on Mar 7, 2011 1:10:41 GMT -5
Hi Douglas - Interesting story - have you managed to get hold of your friend?
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Post by douglaslam on Mar 7, 2011 6:44:09 GMT -5
Hi Helen,
I met my friend yesterday. He said his computer skill is poorer than mine, non-existent, therefore, he couldn't communicate online. He told me many interesting tales of people and things happened in his village when he was a youngster. He remembers a full blood white fella who was brought up in the village. The white young man's mother, a widow with a son married a Chinese. The couple took the child with them to China, and left the boy with the grandmother, and then returned to Australia.
The grandmother and young child lived in poverty as they received no support from Australia. The boy grew up speaking only Chungshan Shekki dialect. He and his grandmother lived hard lives. He was often taunted though not in a malicious way. Sadly, he died only in his forties and never married.
Because my friend had an Irish great-grandmother, his mother retained some European features. In the village, she was simply called gwai por. She didn't take that as an insult nor was it meant to be. It was just plain Cantonese speak, like calling a deaf old woman lung por, a fat boy fei jay.
Douglas
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Post by kublia on Dec 26, 2013 19:50:45 GMT -5
Hi, Will an American story work as well? I have Chinese ancestry and we were told growing up, our line was from the Great Walled City. Where as, there is so much pure BS on planet earth I wondered if I were being taken for an idiot. However, my autosomal DNA tests reveal this is likely true. Here's what I was told. Two young ladies, princesses as it were, were told by the Priest who raised them to get out of the Royal City as a new lady had been brought into the courts and she was having people killed. This apparently happened in the 1830s or 40s. My ancestor, named for a flower, and her cousin left with a British Ship and guards, and were given money and jewels to make their way to a safe house in England. The ship went no further than SF, CA, and there they were told to wait until a ship came, to take them further. Both being young and hard headed bought a coach, supplies and horses, and with their 3 man guard, headed across the US, a very dangerous thing in that time. They made it as far as the "great river", where a gang of outlaws showed up. The guards gave into the outlaws and sold them into slavery. My ancestor later showed up in Montgomery Co., NC where she had been sold to a local plantation owner a Mr. DeBerry. (Montgomery County, NC Heritage Book, one of the 4 volumes) . DeBerry's wife made him get rid of her. She was literate and no doubt smarter than DeBerry, and she left Chinese items written in Chinese. A next door neighbour to Mr. DeBerry, a William Mills, had recently lost his wife and was having a hard time caring for his child and other young children, so DeBerry gave her to William Mills. She was given an American name and lived with Mills. She was said to be very nice looking. She and Mills had a son named Robert Mills born about 1856. Robert Mills is my ggrandfather, I am 75 years old. I am 1/16 Chinese, and I knew she had said we came from Ghangis or Kublia Khan. The autosomal DNA test backs up the 1/16 , but her genes were Finnish, Ural, Vulga, with a trace of Asian. That's apparently from the Khan boys. My father looked the role, and a lot like the Emporer Po or Pu, who I feel we must share genes with. I suspect the changing of the Chinese Emporers, involved the hanging on to the young ladies of the older order. Else it would make no sense. Is there any way I can check my DNA against the Chinese lines? I have several DNA tests already, 23&me, ftdna, ancestry.com and doing more, I plan to do them all. I have this uploaded to Gedmatch.com and made public. My kits at gedmatch.com are A110102 and A169137. Please check to see if any of you match any of my genes. How can I test this against Po's line, or other lines from the Great Walled City? Is it possible some of you will test my autosomal SNBs and see if we are related? Because this line is up close in time, we could test as close as 4th cousins, and solve this. There is no way the cowboys saved the Chinese Princess. It just didn't happen. She died in Montgomery Co., NC, aged, and she loved her children, at times making them special Chinese hair styles. She said these hairstyles belonged to special times of the year. So did I come from Kublia Khan, or just get conned? Thank you for a reply before hand. I have some pictures, not of her, but her grandchildren. Would any one like to see them? Kublia Read more: siyigenealogy.proboards.com/thread/1869/china-collection-genealogies-1239-2011?page=2#ixzz2odBr42bX |
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