my father's chinese roots

[alexvargas]

according to our records, my father was born in canton china in 1925. he came to the philippines in 1940 before the outbreak of the second world war. he carried along with him a chinese passport bearing the name soon seto. he studied in a chinese school in manila but was hampered during the onset of the war. he later move to dumaguete with his relatives and later finished his high school studies at silliman university an american mission school in 1949. school records showed that he carried the name of soonie soho. but later in his life, he was carrying the name of soonie vargas which i presumed to be caused by certain legalities to acquire philippine citizenship. he had two younger brothers in canada namely yu wan seto and yuk sew seto. since our father died we do not have communications with them. i do hope that someone can shed a light on my story and querry. this is alexander adiong vargas thanking you all and good day.

 

[helen]

Are you Uncles still alive? If so, best to start with the Canadian side of the family. We will need to know where in Canada, Chinese characters for everyone, ages, photos of headstones, passports, and other relevant information

[twoupman]

Hi Alex,

Your surname is one consisting of two characters, Seto (司徒) in Cantonese or Situ in Mandarin. It is also a surname that is predominantly found in Kaiping (開平)county in Jiangmen Prefecture (江門市). As to the village, it is anybody's guess. Perchance if his tombstone has Chinese characters, take a photo and post it on the forum for further help. Soho is the same surname (Seto) but in the Siyi dialect pronunciation.

twoupman
houseofchinn.com

[chansomvia]

Helen
books.google.co.nz/books?id=ti8359SiPXwC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=Henry+Chan#v=onepage&q=Henry%20Chan&f=false

Is this part of your family as the excellent writings of the authors make fantastic reading of NZ, OZ, and Filipino born Chinese researching their family tree.

Very relevant is the bitter re-unions in China and Hongkong wih families who were not able to follow the others to "Gold Mountain". I thing douglaslam may know of this Professor Henry Chan who teaches in Australia but travels back to China every year.

Joe

[Riza]

Aug 22, 2015 21:03:32 GMT -5 alexvargas said:

according to our records, my father was born in canton china in 1925. he came to the philippines in 1940 before the outbreak of the second world war. he carried along with him a chinese passport bearing the name soon seto. he studied in a chinese school in manila but was hampered during the onset of the war. he later move to dumaguete with his relatives and later finished his high school studies at silliman university an american mission school in 1949. school records showed that he carried the name of soonie soho. but later in his life, he was carrying the name of soonie vargas which i presumed to be caused by certain legalities to acquire philippine citizenship. he had two younger brothers in canada namely yu wan seto and yuk sew seto. since our father died we do not have communications with them. i do hope that someone can shed a light on my story and querry. this is alexander adiong vargas thanking you all and good day.