|
Post by christielum on Mar 14, 2019 20:44:47 GMT -5
Hi, My last name is Lum. 林My grandfather, William Lum, was born in Canton, China and came to Oregon around 1920. Then he later moved to Alexandria, Virginia. On paperwork, my Chinese relatives are listed as being from Shan Tew Li / Sar Toi / Shan Tow in Sunwui, Kwangtung, China. All 3 spellings are listed on different documents and I assume 2 are misspelled and that the location name has since changed. I know Sunwui is now Xinhui, but I can't figure out what the location in bold is and I can't find any of them on villagedb.friendsofroots.org/search.cgi. Is it the village name? And what is the correct spelling or new name? Does anyone know? Thank you, Christie Lum
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Mar 18, 2019 14:18:48 GMT -5
Hello Christie,
The names in bold are indeed the village name. "Li" is the word for village. Is it possible for you to find Chinese characters at all for the name? With just the English spellings, we will be grasping a straws with the number of characters that could represent each word. We could try and make educated guesses, but it would be hard to know for sure. Are you you able to post those documents here for us to take a look at?
Sunwui is the Cantonese pronunciation of Xinhui, so they are one in the same as well as the same Chinese characters 新會. Try to see if you can find Chinese characters if possible for the village name, or if anyone in you family speaks Chinese, and you can record audio of them saying the village name, someone here might be able to decipher it.
The problem is, "shan" in Chinese, in regards to village names is most likely 山 or "mountain", but then you said "sar" which is most likely 沙 or "sand." Toi could be 台 or 代. Tow could be 刀 肚 道 都 度 肚 陶 吐. This is why having Chinese characters is so important.
- Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by tyuti1668 on Mar 18, 2019 17:03:47 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Mar 18, 2019 17:20:23 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by gckimm on Mar 18, 2019 18:58:26 GMT -5
Hi Christie: On the Chinese Wikipedia page listing changes in administrative divisions in Sunwui over the centuries, there is mention of a Sahn Tau 山頭 Village (my romanization) as far back as 1690. According to the website of the Lum Clan of Sunwui (http://www.xinhuilinshi.com/xhls.asp?ClassID=66), a branch of the clan settled in Sahn Tau, Goo Jeng 古井山頭. Goo Jeng (Mandarin = Gujing) is now a town in Sunwui/Xinhui District, Gong Moon/Jiangmen City 江門市新會區古井鎮. You can see Sahn Tau (Mandarin = Shantou) on this Google map. I hope it is the "Shan Tow" for which you are looking. Greg
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Mar 27, 2019 9:26:39 GMT -5
One of the people on my roots trip was from Goo Jeng 古井! We visited the area. However it seems that, that part of Sunwui is not cataloged in the village database. Could it be part of the "Area 8" in the database that is blank? I wonder if anyone plans to update that section of the database at any point.
- Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by christielum on Mar 28, 2019 23:32:24 GMT -5
Lu Thank you, everyone. Here is what his headstone says (William Lum).
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Mar 29, 2019 9:44:51 GMT -5
Hi Christie,
I'm glad that you were able to get a picture of the grave stone. This confirms that Greg is right!
Lum is "forest" because it is made up of two "tree" (木) characters.
The left side of the stone says: 古井 Gu Jing 山頭鄉 Shan Tou Heung The right side of the stone says:廣東省 Guangdong Province 新會縣 Xinhui (Sunwui) County
Your grandmother's name is: 薛美 (Seid Mae) 夫人 is a term for "married woman"
Your Grandfather's name is: 社會 (Seh Wui), and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but does the grandfather have two names, indicated by the character 號 (hao)? His hao is 時穖 with 翁 meaning "man"?
The bottom center characters 之墓 just indicate that it is the tombstone of these two people.
- Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by christielum on Apr 13, 2019 19:25:41 GMT -5
Thank you so much!
I understand the province and the county below but what is Gu Jing and what is Shan Tou Heung?
The left side of the stone says: 古井 Gu Jing 山頭鄉 Shan Tou Heung
The right side of the stone says:廣東省 Guangdong Province 新會縣 Xinhui (Sunwui) County
Christie
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Apr 13, 2019 21:32:00 GMT -5
Christie,
Gu Jing is a town(ship) or zhen 鎮/heung 鄉. Shan Tou is a township or heung 鄉. There are some townships or towns that share the same name as a village, like 山頭鄉 Shan Tou heung "township" and 山頭村 shan tou cun "village". I thought that zhens are larger towns, with heungs being smaller ones and villages within each, but I am not entirely sure of the specific difference.
Now one thing I just noticed is that there is no mention of a specific village name on the stone you provided. There are two main terms used to denote a village.
村 Cun or toon in toisan dialect 里 Li
The denotation on Shan Tou here is a heung "township", not a village, so based on the grave stone, I am not 100% confident if Shan Tou is the village.
- Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Apr 14, 2019 19:48:53 GMT -5
Hi Christie, If you read my last post please disregard the part I deleted. So, incredible coincidence! I was visiting some relatives at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY... and as I was walking around the grounds... What are the chances!?!? So, I did some exploring and it looks like you have two relatives buried nearby. Do you know these relatives? I will send you a PM with the pictures. Anyhow, both of these relatives of yours show Shantou to be the village, and not the heung as your grandfather's stone stated. So, I think we can now be confident that Shantou is the village! This is such a small world!!!! - Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by FayChee on Apr 14, 2019 20:18:54 GMT -5
Hi Jeremy, Mara Sen's dad is buried at Cypress.....we visited his grave when she came to NYC to do Ching Ming for him. I was wondering, do you ever go to the Evergreens Cemetery or have relatives there? It is not far from Cypress. About a year ago they did alot of work on the section where my dad is buried and Amy Chin sent a picture of it.....it looked awful to me and I haven't been able to go there for several years. I was just wondering what it looked like now...... Fay Chee
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Apr 14, 2019 22:12:46 GMT -5
Hi Fay Chee, Sorry to hear/see that! I do have family there. My maternal grandfather and great grandparents are there as well as some grand uncles/aunts. Where in Evergreen is your father located? What section? I might be doing one more trip over this season to Cypress, so I can make a stop over possibly to take a look. I hope they fixed it up a little! I have a cousin in my mother's generation in Evergreen who is sitting behind a dumpster area ... - Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by FayChee on Apr 15, 2019 1:51:27 GMT -5
Hi Jeremy, I don't know if you are related to Amy Chin, but my dad is between her Granddad and Uncle. She said " All the plantings (including my grandfather’s tree which had grown to over 10 feet tall) have been removed and they are laying down new sod. They’ve also re-set all the headstones so they’re even and level. And, that overgrown bushy area is now all cleared." Here is a another picture of the area that she sent, and I made this flyer for my family (hope you can print it out)...... If you can take a picture of the area now and my dad's gravesite, I would really appreciate your kindness. Fay Chee
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Apr 15, 2019 16:12:06 GMT -5
Hi Fay Chee, I am not related to Amy. Chin is my grandfather's adopted name. He is a Cheung by blood. If we are related, it is way up the tree. I know where that area is; right by the north entrance. I remember the archway. If I make the trip out there in the next few weeks, I will definitely stop by and take some photos. P.S. You are the second person this week to ask if Amy and I are related haha. I love how close knit this community is. - Jeremy
|
|