Trying to find village near DaJiangzhen

[dhfw80d888]

I am trying to locate a Louie (lei) village, maybe 5km from Dajiang called "Shun Sui" The is the old name. It is supposed built on the side of a mountain and a village names Sui Bin lies a short distance from it. I cannot find either on current maps. It's market town was both "Tai Kong" (Dajiang) and Shek Kiu (Shiqiao). Any help would really be appreciated. Thanks

塘面鄉

Tong Min Heung


順水

Shun Sui Village

[Henry]

dhfw80d888

Link to show Shunshui (#68) and Shuibian (#71) located in Tong Min Heung:

villagedb.friendsofroots.org/display.cgi?level=Heung&id=76

Google map link for Shunshui:

www.google.com/maps/place/Shunshui,+Taishan,+Guangdong,+Jiangmen,+Guangdong+Province,+China/@22.350881,112.7227535,13z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x3401fa610096e733:0xcc1eddd89c7c21a7!8m2!3d22.320713!4d112.789959?hl=en

village map



Henry

[robert123]

Hi Henry & dhfw80d888, Shun Sui 順水 seems like a popular name for a village. There are no less than 9 entries in VillageDB. However only the one in Tong Min Heung 塘面鄉 belongs to the Louie clan. The village that you found, Henry, I believe is in the wrong township. It is too far south for Tong Min Heung 塘面鄉. As dhfw80d888 noted it could be an old name. Sui Bin 水邊(水边) is very close to my village Sam Dor 三多 which is also in Tong Min Heung 塘面鄉 - see image. Looking at the satellite image Sui Bin 水边 looks like it is at the foot of a mountain. There is a village on the same mountain just to the south-east called Kiu Tau 橋頭(桥头). Perhaps this is the new name for Shun Sui 順水.

Google Map: Sui Bin

[Henry]

Hi robert123,

Thank you Robert, yes, I made an error in identifying the location of Shun Sui village south of Tong Min Heung - I apologize.

Since Shun Shui # 68, Sui Bin # 71, and Kiu Tau # 35 are all in the Tong Min Heung listing in the Village Database:

villagedb.friendsofroots.org/display.cgi?level=Heung&id=76

They appear to be 3 separate villages at the time that the Village Database was compiled in the early 1960s. I checked a Taishan gazetteer (1998) and only Sui Bin and Kiu Tau appear under Shek Kiu market:



I suspect that the original Shun Sui was a small hamlet adjacent to either Sui Bin or Kiu Tau, and was later on, merged & consolidated under the Sui Bin or Kiu Tau village name.

Since, I am not Chinese literate, can you make a search of any gazetteers for this area for any additional information. Of course, when visiting either village - I am sure the villagers could clarify the village name.

Henry

[robert123]

Hi Henry, the 1998 Taishan gazetteer you've posted showing the "new" administrative districts down to the village level is a great resource. Where did you find it? I doubt there's anything earlier online.

[Henry]

Hi robert123,

Please email me at "[e-mail]" and we can discuss this gazetteer.

Henry

[lachinatown]

Excellent book. A detail map to go with this book would be great.

[Henry]

lachinatown,

This book does have maps, but, they are not detailed.

I checked & there is a copy for sale online, hard to tell if it is the same book, because there is no description for $165 USD.

My copy cost 120 RMB = $22 USD.

This is a 596 page book, with approximately 75 pages of Taishan township listings of villages. The remaining 500 or so pages are quite detailed gazetteer accounts of what looks like town histories - fascinating, but, I cannot read them :-(

My Taishan nephew bought this book at a Taishan bookstore, the next time I visit the Taishan book stores, I will ask one of my Chinese literate friends to join me to help me buy some good reference books - that are not so obvious.

Here is the title page & the information page - which might say where it can be purchased.









Henry

[Henry]

Sorry for the double post

[kimjoongsik131]

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Friv2

[Henry]

Hi kimjoongsik131 / Friv2,

As you are probably new to this Forum, finding the name & location of one's ancestral village in China is the primary key to researching Chinese ancestry.

It is more than just satisfying curiosity, because as far as I know, none of emperors of China nor the Chinese governments have collected & archived family genealogy lineages for all the common people. China is rather unique because Chinese lineages has been a cultural tradition for almost 5,000 years. Unfortunately, during the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976), the Red Guards destroyed most of Chinese genealogies in China. Since about year 2000, Chinese genealogy has experienced a tremendous resurgence in both China & overseas.

Fortunately, in the case of Guangdong province, the Cantonese people were able to preserve their family & clan genealogies by hiding them or sending them with overseas Chinese. The Cantonese are very fortunate to be able to recover their genealogy books. Sadly, many Chinese within the provinces of northern China have lost their family clan lineages.

Hence, many of the ancestral villages in the Sanyi & Siyi regions of Guangdong province do have village genealogy books that contain the names of many of the ancestors of overseas Chinese, which can be linked back to their clan progenitor for Guangdong province & then back to HuangDi, the Yellow Emperor (2697 BC - 2597 BC). In some cases, when the village no longer has the villages genealogy book, the village lineage may have already been recompiled in the clan lineage for a nearby larger town / city and may also be found in a nearby ancestral hall.

Henry