Zheng jiapu

[dragonchef]

www.scribd.com/doc/214451905/Zheng-Family-Tree-2014-03

At Doug's suggestion, I am posting my family jiapu in this forum. I'm hopeful that I can gain some wisdom about my family history from the members of this forum. Currently, I am in the process of digitizing this form with the aid of Google Docs, Google Translate, Pleco, nckiu and a smartphone with a pen (which I use to write the Chinese characters into Google translate).

I believe the document was written entirely by my grandmother.  I don't speak, read or write in Chinese.

I have learned so much already from this site and from the information that Doug has so kindly shared with me.

[lachinatown]

Can you make the picture better, larger and higher resolution? can't read it.

[dragonchef]

www.scribd.com/doc/214451905/Zheng-Family-Tree-2014-03

sorry, this link will work much better.

[Doug 周]

My rudimentary analysis: I feel this image (2nd page) is the generational poem. Dragonchef's grandmother labeled the order of the names:



The boxed characters represent the generational names of the 1st to 4th generation of ancestors:



Please let me know if I am incorrect.

[laohuaqiao]

I'm not sure what info dragonchef is looking for in his jiapu. I'll just give a general description of its contents.

Doug is correct that page 2 contains the generation poem. The original poem contains only 31 characters and in 1921 ten more characters were added. The text under the 10th character questioned whether it is wen 文 as written or yong 永. The text under 23rd character mentioned that the original character xiu 修 was changed to shi 式 to avoid usage of 19th generation ancestor's, which would be disrespectful.

Pages 3-7 provide the lineage chart (not genealogy tree) from the perspective of one individual Yuanding 元鼎 from generations 1 to 23. The last entry on that list is generation 23rd ancestor, born in 1776 and died in 1835.

Starting from page 8 to 11, it provides the genealogy tree for the jiapu, starting from Yuanding 元鼎's great grandfather, generation 24th, born 1816 and died 1876, and includes grandfather and grand-uncles, and father and uncles.

From page 12 onward, it provides Yuanding 元鼎 and his 2 younger brothers, his children and nephews and nieces.

[philiptancl]

Dragonchef,

I should be able to collate the ancestors contained therein into a pedigree chart (like what I had done for Fay Chee and others) for you if that is of any interest to you. If you wish me to do so, please email me all those Chinese characters you had digitized so far as it would save me considerable time for doing them again. I would think some of the characters I would not be able to digitize. For example what should be the second character for the Zi (字) name for the great grandfather (at the 24 generation) mentioned therein? Should the second character be “羮” so that his Zi (字) name would be “ 學羮” or could it be “ 學姜”? I could not find the character with “大” before “羔”. With quick assessment, I see that ancestors in generations 20 and earlier do not record their dates of birth and death. Also the names of children for generations 22 and earlier are not given.

However, if you wish me to construct the chart, I am afraid that you will need to wait for awhile as I just started preparing the annual tax returns not only for myself but also that for my wife and three of my children.

Philip

[dragonchef]

Thanks for looking at this doug, laohuaqiao and philiptancl. I've been asking myself what I am looking for also. What you have outlined for me is a big help. I did notice something changed at generation 23 but couldn't figure it out.



Yuanding 元鼎 would be my grandfather's(元森) eldest brother.



I'm curious if there is a method I can use to find place names. I am unclear as to where my family's roots are prior to to Shanghai.



I've basically been using the following as my method---



page 3 and column 7 and 8, when I digitize it yields me this cryptic translation-

Sān sh ì? name Pu Ling married Lien Shun Kǔn Hé both buried in Jieyang District 深浦 Hill 揭阳


三世真子號靈浦娶連氏號順阃合葬揭陽属深浦山寶

泉寺頂



Also, the generational poem seems mostly to show generational names. Is there any other meaning to this besides listing the generations. I was under the impression that there was.

Thanks again.

[dragonchef]

philiptancl, I can email you my digital jiapu when I get a little further along in this process or I can share the current Google doc with you.  Is there a link where I can see what a pedigree chart looks like?

Thanks.

[laohuaqiao]

Mar 27, 2014 8:47:26 GMT -5 dragonchef said:

I'm curious if there is a method I can use to find place names. I am unclear as to where my family's roots are prior to to Shanghai.

Your 1st generation ancestor came from Putian 莆田 in Fujian 福建 , passed the second highest level imperial exam in Song Dynasty 皇祐元年己丑 year 1049 (the scholars who passed this exam are called jinshi 进士) , and served as official in Chaoze 潮泽 Jinpu 金浦.

3rd generation ancestor was buried in Jieyang 揭阳 , in Guangdong.

I can't find any reference to a location called Chaoze 潮泽. However, there is a Jinpu 金浦 in today's Chaoyang District 朝阳区 in Shantou city 汕头市. Jieyang 揭阳 is next to Shantou, about 20-30 km from Jinpu 金浦. So, this is probably where your 1st generation ancestor was and either he or later generations moved to nearby Jieyang.

In this Zheng clan forum, there is a page on all jinshi 进士 from Zheng clans of Fujian《福建郑氏进士录》throughout Chinese history in chronological order.

www.52zsl.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1576

Searching for the year 1049, there is a Zheng Sheng 郑升 （昇 in traditional character) passed the exam and whose name matches the 1st ancestor's name but the generation names are different. He did live in Xianyou county 仙游 of Putian 莆田 in Fujian 福建.

[philiptancl]

Dragonchef,

If you are not familiar in doing the pedigree chart yourself and require me to do it for you instead, you can email whatever names you had digitized so far first. The rest you can send later. The pedigree chart I am referring to are those I have been creating at the request from others. The one I have just done Fay Chee depicting that of her 5th cousin in Canada was posted on Mar 20, 2014 at 10:05am at

siyigenealogy.proboards.com/thread/167/seto-szeto-situ-hoiping-kaiping?ixzz2xECSwLob=undefined&page=30

Fay Chee wanted the printed version as well and requested it to be done using a printer over here. She just received the printed version yesterday by post and she seemed to be thrilled by the result. If Fay Chee is reading this posting she may wish to comment on the difference between the soft copy of her charts and the resulting printed scrolls version using “artist canvass”.

Another chart I had done for a childhood friend whose surname is Zhang (張) and whose ancestors were from Anxi (安溪) county; a county next to Yongchun (永春) where my ancestors were from in Fujian (福建).




Philip

[dragonchef]

Pages 3-7 provide the lineage chart (not genealogy tree) from the perspective of one individual Yuanding 元鼎 from generations 1 to 23. The last entry on that list is generation 23rd ancestor, born in 1776 and died in 1835.



From page 12 onward, it provides Yuanding 元鼎 and his 2 younger brothers, his children and nephews and nieces.

Question regarding the generational poem from generations 24 to 41. Why does the 27th generational name 健 from the poem not match the name for Yuanding 元鼎. I believe 24th was great grandfather, 25th grandfather and 26th father.



Also, what was the intention of the remaining generational names (numbering up to 41)?


Thanks!

[FayChee]

Hi Dragonchef,
Yes, Philip was so kind to do two Pedigree Charts on my newly found Chinese family. They are masterpieces on artist canvass in special UV resistent ink. I know they will be durable enough to withstand all the fingers tracing the words and faces over the years to come, and they are very large, 55" x 35" and 29" x 39", which makes reading it easy on aging eyes.

I don't think there is anyone else who can produce a detailed Pedigree Chart like this and I hope he will be available to make a third chart for me after my trip to China.

Fay Chee

[dragonchef]

Is there a reason why the first generation doesn’t follow the same format as generations 2-23? Generational poem shows 一朝 while page 3 shows 一世昇字朝奉. Other generations all follow this format : 二國 (from generational poem) and page 3 shows 二世國誠.

Thanks.

[dragonchef]

Thanks for the information, FayChee! I'm actively digitizing so I can get the information to Philip.

[laohuaqiao]

Mar 28, 2014 9:30:28 GMT -5 dragonchef said:

Question regarding the generational poem from generations 24 to 41. Why does the 27th generational name 健 from the poem not match the name for Yuanding 元鼎. I believe 24th was great grandfather, 25th grandfather and 26th father.

Also, what was the intention of the remaining generational names (numbering up to 41)?

Thanks!

I think we have to accept the limitation of information passed down through the generation, before the modern day computers, copiers, scanners,etc. There could be errors recorded in the jiapu. What was your grandmother's source of information? Did she copied from an older jiapu with worn out/illegible pages? Did she write it with someone dictating the info to her?


Yuanding 元鼎, 字羹梅, 羹 and 健 may sound the same in her dialect, teochow or hakka. I think in hakka the two are very similar if not the same. Mistake could have happened if the name was dictated to her.

羹 , or something similar to it, appeared also in Yuanding's great grandfather's name, which led to the question brought up by Philip Tan.

She noted in the generation poem that she wasn't sure of the 10th generation character 文 or 永. On page 5, the 10th generation, 十世 文璵 字永德, name is 文璵 and zi 字 is 永德. Choice between 文 or 永, then the generation character must be 永. Perhaps, she wasn't even sure which was name, which was zi.

As to the 2nd question, all clans add to their generation poem when they come close to running out of generation names.