My China Roots via John Jung

[Doug 周]

For those who don’t follow John Jung’s curated two site on Chinese American issues ^click.


This recommended site includes a very nice slide show on the history of the worldwide Chinese diaspora: My China Roots ^click

John Jung's insight:
An impressive site about the Chinese diaspora to many parts of the world, not just North America and Southeast Asia. Check the 48 "slides" on the home page of this site. Disclaimer: The site also provides fee-based genealogical services which I am neither for or against and I get no finder's fees.

[Doug 周]

Sadly, Nick deleted his thread above. The flow is broken and valuable first hand information for Chinese Genealogist is lost. For those new to this thread, I apologize for the choppiness of the content. Doug (27 Jan 2015)

Nick,

Can you private email me, either via the internet or the forum-private-messaging system, about the cost options of My China Roots. Click on my name above the avatar on the left and you should see some options.

I am so glad you traced your roots.

[douglaslam]

Nick, apparently you are still groping in the dark. Siyigenealogy Forum is second to none in its reach in Guangdong Province, and even Fujian. Here, we have IT specialists, a world class cartographer, Chinese language experts, brilliant minds, and even a foot soldier or two who do the probing in the fields. We have individuals who have in depth personal knowledge of the environs whence the emigres to the New World originated. All this is for free. And there is a point man in China who can find his way to every nook and cranny if need be for a modest fee. In short, it is very comprehensive. The runs are on the board as we would put it. If the amateur sleuths who couldn't crack it here, there is not much hope going elsewhere.

[Doug 周]

May 1, 2014 8:54:34 GMT -5 nick said:

It's been a few years since my last post on this thread. I would like to thank Philip, Doug. Al Chinn, and others who have helped me along the way.

There came a time when it seemed that all hope was lost and I was destined not to uncover the past. The information provided from this forum was very useful but I knew that the limits of my research required me to go out of my comfort zone. With the information I had from family members (and also learnt along the way from this forum), I contacted My China Roots, a new established Chinese genealogical service company (which I had found by chance) and commissioned them to locate the ancestral villages of my grandparents and uncover other relevant information regarding my clan - this included getting photos of jiapu pages, the villages, and family members. It took a few months to complete my project and I was very pleased with the final result.

I am posting this reply to let other forum members know that if they are at the limits of free genealogical research and possibly considering paid genealogical services, please contact My China Roots. I found them to be knowledgeable and resourceful, and they provide a range of services and will advise you of the best possible outcome.

I would, however, emphasise that I only came to My China Roots after finding out as much information as I could about my family. Everything that Doug and others have stated on the forum is also very important. READ THEIR POSTS FIRST! It's always important to know to the Chinese character for your surname, ancestral village name or other obituary information etc. before approaching any genealogist. Without the guidance provided on this forum, I would not have known this, which would have led to a lengthier process of research. So I again thank the forum members for their guidance.

Here is the link to the company's site:
www.mychinaroots.com/
Again, I'm sure you will not regret contacting them, and they will advise you straight away regarding the probabilities of your project.

I wish everyone a successful time in their research and hope you will find the answers you're looking for.

Warm regards,
Nick

DL

I have added the quote of Nick’s other post from a different thread for continuity and clarity. Newbies can click on the date of Nick's post to find that original thread.

In one sense, this Forum is competition with My China Roots. However, as Nick points out, the techniques, advice, nuances of Chinese family history, and How-To’s which we emphasize are all needed to advance to the next level of family history research: ancestral homeland field research.

Many have taken the route of visiting their ancestral village themselves, using Tan ShiCheng (Henry’s nephew), their own guide, or totally on their own. Young people have the opportunity to use In Search of Roots  if they can commit a year of training and are within striking distance to the San Francisco Bay area.

I myself have hired ^click Tan ShiCheng to do my ancestral village field research; douglaslam (DL) (twice) volunteered to do additional work for me. laohuaqiao has done field research for several participants in the Forum during his trips to China. I also have requested relatives going back to China to obtain mutual jiapus from village relatives.

However, just like doing home repairs, you can DIY (do it yourself) or hire a professional depending on your individual needs and comfort level. I know of genealogical professionals who do commission work on Chinese family research. They don’t do ancestral homeland field research. The Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco used to have a retainer service of U$500 in addition to U$500 membership fee for genealogical research. Again, they specifically excluded any ancestral homeland fieldwork for lack of contacts.

I very much appreciate Nick sharing his experiences with these professionals. In which other venue can we have an honest discussion about all the options for Chinese family research?.

Because I study all my extended families heritage, I have 4 genealogical brick-walls in my lineage research outside the Pearl Delta region. I definitely would contemplate using My China Roots for some of those lineage studies.

DJ

[philiptancl]

I had looked at Chen/Tan (陳) zupus for Wenchang (文昌) for a couple of others and I find quite some discrepancies comparing the earlier generations. I therefore was not surprised when Nick mentioned (in his recent email to me) that there too was some in his case.

I had worked on Nick search in the past within this Forum and his case had come to a point where Nick would have either to go to Hainan (海南) to verify his ancestral village and/or to locate his zupu/jiapu or get someone to do that for him. Going to China looking for the clan ancestral hall on your own without been sufficiently advised beforehand could be met with unhappy experience as had happened in one of the two cases I came across just recently. For the one that I advised (though he no longer has any near relative there now) he and his family were met with overwhelming hospitality. As to the other (who was not advised beforehand) he and his family were not even allowed to enter the ancestral hall; let alone to view the ancestral records.

As for Nick, he too is illiterate in Chinese and knowing that he was brought up in Penang, I would not be surprised he has lost the ability to converse in Hainanese with any degree of proficiency. It would be challenging if he had made the trip on his own. As such I think he made the correct choice in getting My China Roots to undertake the balance of his ancestral search for him after he had obtained the essential initial information through this Forum. What I am hoping if that My China Roots could engage local helpers at various parts of Guangdong and Fujian to do the searches rather than having someone traveling down from Beijing. This would keep the cost down.

[douglaslam]

Nick, why am I getting a spray from you? You are losing the plot, mate. I've never seen such venom spewed out by any individual here. That's not the spirit of this Forum. You are a trendsetter.

If my post sounds a little over-enthused and exuberant, I make no apologies for it. I never consider this Forum is a be-all and end-all. Those are your words, and don't put words in my mouth. This Forum does not have a monopoly. How you conduct your search is your business.

I will always be a big fan and cheerleader of the Forum. And I am not afraid to stand on the roof and shout out, from time to time, about this Forum's efficacy. I have seen the runs on the board over several years. If you don't like what I write, ignore it. If you find it offensive, ask the Moderator to take it down. I have no problems with that.

[Doug 周]

“The only constant is change.”

If you look at the URL for this forum, it states http:\\siyigenealogy…. This forum started with emphasis on the Siyi region of Guangdong, because most of the overseas Chinese to English speaking countries came from that region. Quickly the conversations included those from Zhongshan. We are seeing more inquiries about Fujian province immigrants, as Chinese from the Indonesian region include their inquiries.

As a matter of fact, John Jung discussed this in an online powerpoint clone (Prezi)^click

Nick hails from Hainan. I have asked Ken^click (personal inquiry) to write about genealogy from Shandong province, his wife’s ancestral homeland.

We are losing our ‘foot soldiers’ (Tan Shi Cheng) who does commissioned field work for Overseas Chinese.

Jul 27, 2014 13:10:16 GMT -5 Henry said:

....My nephew, Tan Shi Cheng...will be moving to Hong Kong the near future. ...

Different opinions are good. Different genealogic research options are even better.

[chansomvia]

I took a bus from Hong Kong to Xin Hui and used this as a base to explore Taisan and Haiyen as we were in contact with a business man there who gave us his company van and driver. I say this as having met Tan Shi Cheng as a green horn on my first visit some years back there should be no reason for him to stop the field work for Overseas Chinese, it would be a sad loss if he stops as he is sincere, hard-working and by now very experienced with a good network. For Henry please inform him that I was, and still am, deeply appreciative of his meeting me at the Taicheng bus stop after I phoned him by chance on a bus ride from Shenzen to Taicheng. He had to close his shop to meet me, we had lunch together and hired a taxi for me to go to Haiyen. The taxi driver said he knew where the village was but Tan Shi Cheng was not convinced and came with me. It was fortunate that he did as the driver halfway on the trip said the price quoted was for a one way drive, he would just drop us there and we had to find our own way back! He had to work very hard as he was putting his daughter into University, the tuition fees were crippling but she had to have these extra lessons to gain a place in the University. Perhaps Henry could enquire if his daughter managed to complete her studies. He could operate quite easily from Hong Kong as travel to Siyi territory is now very easy and quick.

Joe of Christchurch.

[laohuaqiao]

After more than 10 years that this siyigenealogy forum has gone on line, I hope one impression people have gotten is the land where our ancestors came from is no longer some remote, mysterious place. Mobile phones are very common, even among folks in rural villages. In some ways China is already ahead of the West, in Taishan city, for instance, you go into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and you can get free wifi there, no need to look for a KFC, or McD, or Starbuck. A lot of information, including genealogy info, are being posted on Chinese websites, though unfortunately they are in Chinese.

For searching one's ancestral roots, I don't think there is any real advantage with having someone doing the research within China, over someone doing the same in the US. We can find phone numbers of administrative villages on line. In New York City, one can buy phone cards for international calls to China, it's cheap $1, at US for 60 minutes, perhaps even cheaper than a local call in China.

There was one extreme case, where a son wanted to find his deceased father's village in Taishan and his father's older sister, his aunt and all he had was his father's Chinese name. It turned out the surname was one of the rare ones in Taishan, no more than 10 villages and most of them clustered in one district. All it took was a phone call to the village chief and a follow up call a day later the village chief had already found the ancestral village and the aunt and the aunt's phone number and other contact information.

We can access any website that's accessible within China, at least as far as I am aware of, but the general public in China can not access many outside websites. Chinese government blocks some websites and, specifically, because of an ongoing dispute between Chinese government and Google, attempting to do Google search is often difficult, if not impossible.

One additional advantage for those of us from Siyi to start our search in the US is frequently the long lost relatives we are looking for have already migrated to the US.

[Doug 周]

I’ve noticed more and more post from laohuaqiao include quotations from Chinese language sites which he has researched while based in the USA. tyuti1668 shares almost exclusively Chinese sites.

Google translations leave a lot to be desired for navigating Chinese websites. So for now, technology lags behind the amount of information available on the internet.

I still think this image is true even in China



But as laohuaqiao says the telephoning and personal contacting the village chief is a means of getting access to that information.

Language issues continue to be a problem. A friend of mine from my region recently visited Zhongshan, confident in his ability to speak the local dialect. He was frustrated by the paucity of people able to speak with him.

So this makes the services of My China Roots ^click even more valuable. Truly the only constant is change. I look forward to the day when technology allows me to access the Chinese websites as well as laohuaqiao and tyutil668. Hopefully it's before I become demented .

[lachinatown]

Agree.

[laohuaqiao]

Doug,
An advice from an old Chinese saying is "never enter a government building while one is alive". People in the past heeded that advice, so I don't think there is much documented information in Chinese government archives or libraries. I have found much of the useful information for roots search reside in the memories of the old folks in rural villages. These old folks grew up without television, computer or smartphone. Just as we download information onto our hard drives, the old folks copied family tales from their parents, told around the dinner table every day, and their parents from the grandparents and so on. Unfortunately, this is a dying breed, information will be lost if not recorded onto hard drives very soon.

As far as understanding Chinese, I have to say that for me learning Chinese has been a lifelong project, it's not intentional, it just turns out that way. As I said recently, before coming to the US, while attending elementary school in Hong Kong, I was perpetually ranked at the bottom of the class and Chinese language was my worst subject. I'm making up for that. My advice is it's never too late to learn, very few people ever master the language, one just try to learn as much as one can, and no matter at what age it's going to be a lifelong project.

[Doug 周]

laohuaqiao,

I am very curious what is being presented on the Chinese websites on the internet? Are they family trees? Are they heritage discussions? Are they Imperial history and cultural discussions? What regions have the most activities? Our Chinese Forum emphasizes the Pearl Delta region because of the diaspora from Guangdong. Is there a lot written about the Pearl Delta, or is it other regions.

You mentioned that as memories fade, the stories are lost. Do you find attempts to capture those stories?

If possible, please answer in a new thread, since the original topic has been hijacked by several branches.

Doug

[laohuaqiao]

Doug,
On the Chinese website,
there is baidu.com which has baidu's equivalent of wikipedia and Answers;
there are local government websites which have local history, culture, population migration, tourist attractions, historical sites, etc.;
and what's most interesting is I'm seeing many interactive sites on surnames, which include BBS or discussion groups, do a baidu search on (any Chinese surname) + 氏论坛.

It's this last item that I want to discuss a bit more and it has some relevance to this thread. The internet is a great tool for search of information, I think it is an even greater tool as a means of communication which allows individuals from different parts of the world to interact. If we measure intelligence of an individual by one's ability to find a solution to a problem, say to locate an ancestral village, I think the intelligence of a group of interactive members is greater than the sum of its members; in fact, it may be an exponential increase. This is often demonstrated in this forum. Granted the surname clan discussion groups are still in formative stage, with a few experts and many other members seeking information, not unlike this forum. I believe these groups will grow. Imagine there are 100,000,000 Chen's in China, if 1 in a million is interested in Chen clan genealogy, even if only locally, that 100 experts in the Chen forum. One is missing a lot by not being able to participate in these forums. To put into perspective, it only takes knowing 3000 Chinese characters to be able to read a Chinese newspaper.

The collective intelligence of interactive groups will grow as long as information is free flowing among the members. By free, I mean both in the financial sense and in an unimpeded matter. If there is financial incentive and it is high enough, people would withhold information and charge a price for providing it. I would rather not see it happen here.

[Henry]

Dear Forum Members,

The notion that online research is all that is necessary for successful Chinese genealogy research is just not true.

I believe that successful Chinese genealogical research requires both approaches of online and field research performed by a competent researcher visiting the ancestral village are both viable and sometimes needed to research & to verify Chinese genealogy research.

Chinese genealogy research in China and on the Chinese Internet was not revitalized until around year 2000. From 1949 to around 2000, the Chinese government did very little to promote Chinese genealogy research or allegiance to the family & the ancestors. Prior to that, most Chinese genealogy research was performed by overseas Chinese. Also, Internet usage in Mainland China did not really start to increase until after year 2000.

As for performing my own person Chinese genealogy research on the Internet, in China, and from what I and my Taishan nephew have learned from helping many SiYi Forum members, I must say that doing Chinese genealogy online research for information in China is a great start, however, the information is limited. Because, much of the information that is found on the Chinese Internet - many overseas Chinese cannot read /write or speak Chinese.

This Forum is a wonderful for a worldwide collective effort for the interactive assistance to overseas Chinese beginning their research on their genealogy. But, the fact remains that even though there is an increasing amount of Chinese genealogical information becoming available on the Internet, this requires a Chinese literate person to understand and interpret this information for it to be useful.

The SiYi Forum is indeed most fortunate to have the generosity of help from " laohuaqiao ", who is a great field researcher of the SiYi region because he visits the SiYi region almost annually. But, without people like him, it would be difficult to progress Chinese genealogy successfully on this Forum.

The SiYi Forum is a great venue to perform the basic research of discovering & verifying the surname and location of the ancestral village. The ancestral village is important in Chinese genealogical research because this is usually where the village genealogy book is located. This is the free part.

To have a Chinese person follow through and confirm this is the actual ancestral village, travel & visit the village, interview the village chief & elders and obtain a copy of the village genealogy book and review it for the names of ancestors, and take photos of the village - this is the paid part. I do not know anybody who is willing to do all of this for free.

A local person performing the research, many villagers are very suspicious of outsiders and will not willing to share information. During the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards seized and destroyed Chinese genealogy books - many village families are still wary of any outsiders.

Western genealogy, unlike Chinese genealogy, can be performed on online because in North America and other countries - because much of the information is digitized and stored in online databases. But, even with the great strides in recent years in China, the vast majority of the fundamental records, village genealogy books, still remain in the ancestral villages in village genealogy books, majority are handwritten, and this why the field research is necessary.

In this regard, Chinese genealogy research in the ancestral villages by a researcher is invaluable in terms of: accessing and/or copying village genealogy books, interviewing the village chief & elders and possibly blood relatives, as most villages are usually inhabited by members of the same surname. To the delight of many overseas Chinese, the home of their ancestors is still standing in their ancestral village. Seeing the photos of the their grandfather's home in the ancestral villages inspires many overseas Chinese to come to China to visit their ancestral home and to pay their respects to their ancestors.

When I researched, I have had to pay for translations, genealogy books, and guide services to progress my Chinese genealogical research - it would be wonderful if this was all free. I was more interested in results and I willing to make a reasonable payment to attain it.

Henry