Is Moi-yean the same as Meixian?

[Woodson]

Today I received the following email:

before i left south africa i spoke to an old lady who was a family friend and when i asked her about my ggrandfather, she, without hesitation said he came from moi-yean. on another document i have says he came from hoi-am. in earlier years the british officials wrote down the chinese names the way they thought it was pronounced. i am working on the assumption that hoi-am could be moi-yean.

My take is on the two names is one is the village and the other is the county. Moi-yean is the county currently known as Meixian. Could somebody please confirm or point out another path?

Hoi-am is the village of origin. But can't find anything that is close to this on the map. Please help.

[twoupman]

Moi-yean (Moi-yan) is the Hakka pronunciation for Meixian. Do you have the characters for Hoi-am?

[Woodson]

twoupman said:

Do you have the characters for Hoi-am?

Unfortunately, no. We'll just have to wait to see whether he can unearth any documents with Chinese characters. Thanks.

[priscillaxie]

my maternal grandfather also came from moy yean. We still have a family house there but i don't know exactly where it's located. My grandfather name is Wong Ga Gao (Wang Jia Gao) and my Great Grand Father name is Wong Yan Hoi.