Non-Han Lineages

[chane]

It must have happened in Chinese history that important non-Han males married into the society. What happened to their records if they adopted a Han surname? If a non-Chinese American father and mother of Chinese descent would like to register their children, how could they fit into the system? There are such cases where the Caucasian parent's Western surname is almost Chinese -- Lee, Young, Thom, Marr, Chew, etc.

[gckimm]

Hi:

The situation you first mentioned certainly happened during the Yuan and Qing dynasties, when the rulers of China were Mongol and Manchu, respectively. Meticulous genealogical records were kept of the ruling house, of course, even though the members were not Chinese.

In former times, women were practically ignored in genealogical records. If they were married, the names of their husbands would perhaps be listed, and perhaps some reference to the husband's background ("son of So-and-so of Such-and-such-a place"). If the husband was from a prominent family, such as the family of an official, there might also be a reference to that. I imagine that if a husband was not from a Han family, that might be noted but not necessarily, especially if he had a Chinese name.

In my own genealogy, there is this reference to one of the wives of an ancestor: 的斤色目里氏. According to my research, 色目, which means "colored eyes," is an ancient term that refers to the Turkic people living in NW China, while 的斤 is a Chinese transliteration for the Turkic title tegin, given to family members of the khan. My conclusion is that this woman was from a Turkic family of high status but her Chinese surname was 里.

I am not sure what families in China do today if they are maintaining a genealogy and need to add the names of people who are not Chinese. The simplest solution, of course, is to write in the Western names. For those who have the capability and the desire, Chinese names may be chosen for these relations. My personal practice is to create a Chinese name that is phonetically similar to the person's name, always using a Chinese surname and then two additional Chinese characters for the "personal name," along with some reference to the person's "foreign" origin. For example, if someone is named Smith, I might refer to that person as 施明圖--Mandarin "Shi Mingtu"/Cantonese "See Ming To."

Greg

[merantau]

Or the Xianbei royal house, who adopted the Yuan surname.

But the specific case of American father, Chinese mother referred to by OP is problematic.  The genealogies record the history of the patrilineal surname.  In the exceptions where a daughter is listed, their offspring would not be as they would not bear the surname and are expected to be represented in the husband's genealogy.  The non-Han examples quoted earlier involve the genealogy of that group being introduced as Chinese de novo rather than added to an existing genealogy.  OP could do the former readily but appears to be asking if an option to achieve the latter exists.  I can't think of one that does not create insuperable difficulties elsewhere.