When would a jiapu be copied?

[kerry]

Apologies if this question has been answered before but I couldn't find the answer.

Would I be correct to assume that traditionally the jiapu was kept somewhere in the village like an ancestral room? If so, what were the protocols around making copies? If there were copies, was there any practices which kept different copies "in synch"? Finally, do we have any ideas around how these practices were adopted in diaspora communities?

[helen]

In our case, some one brought a copy to New Zealand - but it was not updated - due to the 1940s events and the fact that after 1949, most were destroyed as the country was closed to outsiders. No one dared to keep a copy. Sometimes they were wrapped up and buried - for fear of it being discovered.

[Doug 周]

I hope this post makes some attempt to answer your question and is not too disjointed. I can only answer from my personal experience. Hopefully others can share. Of course westernized Chinese genealogy is a collection of personal experiences as there are no guidelines or governing ISO. Maybe in the Chinese literature there are written standards, but that is beyond my comprehension.

I think of jiapu's as personal documents retrieved by copying or memorizing familial lineages as Chinese travel to their distant destinations. My elders frequently recite their jiapu's (and generational poems) and those literate enough will write them down upon request. Very few will maintain them for their offsprings as their main emphasis was merely surviving in foreign lands. Those Chinese subject to exclusionary laws and especially using paper names dare not possess written jiapu's in western countries for fear of proof of fraud.

The only person who kept the jiapu/zupu of his clan in sync was Ah Gin , a Chinese-Australian who was an officer of his clan's association in San Francisco. A former active forum contributor, he has not logged in over the past 3 years.

Most of the updates of the jiapu's were one-way. When a clan member returns to the ancestral village, for a monetary contribution they will enter their offspring's names into the zupu. However, as Henry says, most of the jiapu/zupu are not held in the ancestral halls, but in private hands. I too would like to input my and my offspring's names into my 周 zupu. However, the ravages of the cultural revolution has dispersed these jiapu/zupu and I am not sure who has an 'official' book. There may not be an official copy.

Hopefully Henry and philiptancl will share their much greater experiences about diaspora community jiapu's.

IMHO

[Henry]

Hi,

I believe prior to the 1949 take over of China by the Communists, there were copies of the clan & village genealogy books kept in the ancestral halls. After 1949 there was a systematic destruction of ancestral halls & there contents. After year 2000, Mainland Chinese joined the overseas Chinese in their passion for Chinese genealogy books. This revival was found in many ancestral villages and ancestral halls were rebuilt. Recently, I was helping a lady to try and find a copy of her village genealogy book. No existing copies were found, however, inside the ancestral hall - the entire clan / family lineage was posted elaborately on the walls of the ancestral hall.

Between 1911 & 1949, China was in a state of tremendous turmoil - which was further extended to at least 1976 - when the Cultural Revolution ended - there was very little clan & family lineages updated. Then clan & village genealogy books were updated. Overseas family associations kept records which were sent back to China to update clan & village genealogy books. Individuals also pooled their money to hire a Chinese literate person to update the village genealogy book that was carried overseas from the ancestral village.


Recently, a few years ago, I sent in updates from my family to the Taishan Tan Association and they updated the lineages.


Henry

[Ah Gin]

Doug, long time no see, in a manner of speaking. I had not realized that it had been a long time since I posted anything useful. I miss the Forum but demands of daily business has distracted me from the wonderful world of heritage research. That said, in December 2015 I returned to SF to attend the Installation of the President of the Chinese Consolidate Benevolent Society aka The Six Companies of San Fracisco. It was our clan's turn to take the honor of the prestigious role (once in every 24 years). Regret I did not catch up with you as I was staying at Oakland during my visit. Perhaps next visit. BTW I am still an official of our clan society in SF. Still young enough ☺

ah gin

[Doug 周]

Welcome back ah gin. It is great to hear from you and that you are still active in your clan. I will try to send a private email using my archived contacts file. Please click below my avatar/image to find my internet email address or just leave me a private forum message.

[Henry]

Ah Gin,

Welcome back ! We all miss your astute contributions. I Congratulations on your clan's turn to serve as the President, Chinese Consolidate Benevolent Association - a great honor !

As a official of your clan society - I hope one of your visits will coincide with that dates for the two Chinese Genealogy Workshops that I am organizing for 2017:

January 9 - 11, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada Forms attached

July 31 - August 2, 2017 Chinatown, San Francisco, California Forms attached in next email


Later this year, if you happen to be in Chinatown, New York City October 15 -16, 2016 - I am organizing a Chinese Genealogy Workshop sponsored by the Museum of Chinese Americans

Henry

Attachments:

2017 Las Vegas Chinese Genealogy Workshop F....doc (36 KB)

2017 Las Vegas Chinese Genealogy Workshop ....doc (42 KB)

[Henry]

Ah Gin,

Here are the forms for the Chinese Genealogy Workshops in Chinatown, San Francisco

Attachments:

2017 San Francisco Chinese Genealogy Worksh....doc (25 KB)

2017 San Francisco Flyer Chinese Genealogy....doc (31 KB)

[chinesesurname]

As mentioned in another thread, the General Genealogy of my clan was published in the 1930's, formed the input for Eberhard's book on social mobility, and is available from FamilySearch.org. When I returned to my Dad's ancestral (not birth village, but the birth village of his dad) in 2004, on a trip arranged by my cousin (dad's sister's son) who I had met on a previous trip, he had arranged for me to meet the headman. We established that my dad was in the village genealogy and I made my donation and gave my Dad's contact information. We were contacted by various relatives who asked us for updated information to be sent back. we did so and received an updated published village genealogy that includes the line back to the original ancestor, Wu Zixu (see wikipedia entry started by me). Since I don't read Chinese, I don't know if it contains an explanation for how it was preserved, but Gangmei is a big village. I know the Ng village of my mother's mother has a village genealogy, as on the visit there, someone brought it out to show me, but my cousin rushed us to the next stop on our itinerary before I could see it.

[fonny]

In 2013 I went back to China and my uncle gave us a copy of 16 pages of Yee's family genealogy( writen in Classical Chinese). It took me 6 month's to translate it. Because I compare it with our Yee Clan's genealogy book
"余紹賢堂族譜" which also can be found in familysearch.org/catalog-search & 余靖世家谱Yu Jing Generations Genealogy Book ,2006 Issue by ‘Yu Jing Memorial Hall韶關余靖纪念館‘at Shaoguan, Guangdong, China. In 1974,
The Mormon Church started to collect a lot of the chinese genealogy books from Hong Kong, Taiwan and from SE Asia. They photo copy them into micro films and they are all available on the familysearch.org/catalog-search.
The 16 pages only about my father's branch and a lot of relatives who were recored in names and no other information.余靖世家谱Yu Jing Generations Genealogy Book is borrowed from Grand Elders--King Sun Yee of Yee Fong Toy Association,(81 Bayard Street, 2F New York, NY 10013). I am lucky that my uncle was able to give us the 16 pages of Yee's family genealogy. But my husband's last name is Lau. Both of us did visit the ancestor hall in his village
but I was unable to locate which branch his family belonged. His great grandfather's name was carved on the stone plage in the rebuilt ancestor hall because he was a government official for the Qing Dynasty. When I tried to buy a copy of the Lau's Genealogy book from the village , I was told that all copies were subscribed before they were printed. However I was able to download the Laus' genealogy book from the village web-site. So far I can only work out 4 generations( my husband, his father , grandfather, great grandfather)and no further.

[richardlum]

My father was from ShaTien which is a satellite village of OnTong.

I was speaking with my nephew who was born in china and he told me something which was quite disturbing. In fact he has quite a big argument with the elders of the village that he was born in about it.

Apparently, my nephew who is about 20 years older than me, told me that after the Second World War, there were people from the village going around the various OnTong villages and asking about the names written in the 族譜 JokPu, and asking the villagers whether they knew this or that person. If they said that the particular person hasn't been seen for quite a long time, they simply deleted that person from the JokPu.

Why it was done I have no idea. I had two uncles who were in New Zealand and I can't find their names in the family JukPo.

The only reason I can think of deleting their names was so that the family members remaining in the village could take over their properties in the village.

I had one cousin who was born in New Zealand and his father took him back to the village just before the outbreak of the war. He couldnt come back to NZ because he had no travel papers. When his father died in the village, he couldn't inherit his fathers property because his father was deleted from the 族譜.

Has anyone heard of this happening in other villages?

[Doug 周]

I have never heard of this but China is a huge country with many personalities and peoples, with their share of nefarious and corrupt individuals. What you shared was the exact opposite of what kerry was asking, and this a sad abuse of power..

That said, it points to the fact that the zupu/jiapu was really an official document used in the management of the clan affairs. It is much like western democracies census reports. The census determines representation to governing bodies and hence subject to gerrymandering. We family historians depend on these booklet to follow our ancestors when there is no other paper trail.

Since most villages were only one clan, the zupu was pivotal in the management of the village and local affairs. We should see the zupu not as a genealogical document, but as an official book to determine governance. The manipulation of your village zupu points to this. We are lucky if we find these zupus to help in our family heritage study.

Others have written about this. See laohuaqiao 's post:link 

Finally, Greif and Tabellini's The Clan and the City: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe is a good academic treatise of this topic: link .

This bit of trivia explains why during the Cultural Revolution Mao's Red Guards were so systematic in destroying the ancestral halls and their zupus. It was their modus operandi in taking control of the local government of China, which was threatening the leadership of the Gang of Four.

Hopefully your kin can find a prewar zupu with which to reconcile the differences.

IMHO

[chinesesurname]

Henry,

I will be accompanying family members to the Chinatown, New York City October 15 -16, 2016 - Chinese Genealogy Workshop sponsored by the Museum of Chinese Americans
you are organizing.

We are planning a(for me another) trip to the ancestral villages. For me, I hope to secure a copy of the the jiapu from my mother's mother's Ng village that I referenced in another post in this thread.
The Stanford Project on the Chinese Railroad workers also suggested that I try to research my male line great-grandfather who "returned from working the railroad with $100, like a millionaire" and my father remembered insignia that he had held Ching Dynasty military title(s).

... Ronald Eng Young (chinesesurname)

[Henry]

Hi Ronald,

I look forward to meeting you & your family members at the workshop:

The Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA) is hosting a Chinese American Genealogy Conference on October 15-16, 2016 in New York City Chinatown:

[http://www.mocanyc.org/programs_and_events/genealogy_conference_2016 ]

If you'd like, please email me at [ [e-mail] ] and I can put you in contact with two people that are also researching the Chinese Railroad workers.

Henry