kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 16, 2020 10:58:31 GMT -5
Can anyone help me locate the following village: 矮崗村 (Aigang/Aigong Village)? Google Maps found one north of Guangzhou but I was wondering if there was perhaps another village with the same name in Taishan. The surname of my relative from this village is 岑 (Shum). Thank you in advance!
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Oct 18, 2020 15:17:20 GMT -5
Hey Kate!
Hope you are well! How is this person related to you? There are not too many Shum villages in Hoisan. Do you know anything else about the village or anything confirming the county the village is in? It is a more popular name in Yanping/Enping.
Did you see the villages from the database? Only 8 in Hoisan.
永康鄉 / Wing Hong Heung 1 低崗堡 / Dai Kong Bo (岑 / Shum) 2 南盛 / Nam Shing (岑 / Shum) 3 南安 / Nam On (岑 / Shum) 4 迎龍 / Ying Lung (岑 / Shum) 5 無春臂 / Mo Chun Bei (岑 / Shum)
台山城 / Toishan City aka 縣城鎮 / Yuen Sing Chun aka 附城鎮 / Fu Sing Chun
6 岑邊 / Shum Bin (岑 / Shum)
西南江鄉 / Sai Nam Kong Heung
7 和保巷 / Wo Po Hong (鄧,伍,林,岑,曾 / Tang, Ng, Lam, Shum, Tsang) 8 橫江舊 / Wang Kong Kau (梁,張,胡,林,李,曹,朱,陳,湯,黃,岑 / Leung, Cheung, Woo, Lam, Lee, Cho, Gee, Chan, Tong, Wong, Shum)
|
|
kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 18, 2020 21:06:19 GMT -5
Hey Jeremy, hope you’re also doing well! This would be the village of my great-grandmother married into the Lee side of my family. Unfortunately, I don’t have more information about the county or village itself other than just the name. Thanks for sharing the village names from the database! Your tip gave me an idea. I looked up each of those district’s location shown on the Friends of Roots website in Google Maps and found an Aigang within Wing Hong Heung where most of the Shum villages were located! Seems like this could potentially be the place: goo.gl/maps/qs1MoK6dJ2wtt6388 The only confusing part is that, from the aerial view, it doesn’t seem like much of a village. Maybe it has been built over from city development? My source is my grandmother's written family history that talks about her parents meeting there around 1910... so not implausible that it has changed significantly or been lost since. Maybe I will try to find an old map of Taishan to see if it appears. Anyway, thanks for your help!
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Oct 20, 2020 19:22:49 GMT -5
Good research! Ok, so unfortunate news. Based on what I can see, and a second look from a FB friend, it looks like the village may be gone. It looks like the original village may have been razed for private development, but new houses may have been built as compensation to the villagers who might have been displaced. The three rows of houses on the top right could be the relocation of the village which used to be nearby.
|
|
kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 20, 2020 23:31:53 GMT -5
Ahh, that is very disappointing news that the village likely doesn’t exist anymore… Thank you for following up and checking with your FB friend. I suppose the risk that many of these smaller villages might not exist anymore due to development is quite real. At least we were able to narrow down where my great-grandmother’s village probably used to be even if it does complicate finding out more information about her lineage.
|
|
|
Post by Doug 周 on Oct 21, 2020 9:42:22 GMT -5
Kate, Don’t be too discouraged. Yes, you might not see old architecture and buildings as they might have been in years past. My inlaws village was over-built in the megapolis Guangzhou yet an on-the-ground researcher was able to network with the village chief, view and image the village zupu. So now is the time to (pending pandemic) visit the village or hire someone to do the groundwork. Remember to then get a WeChat (pending politics) contact so you can continue with follow up dialog.
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Oct 21, 2020 17:06:10 GMT -5
I agree whole heartedly with Doug! Half of the fun will be going to visit and seeing what surprises you find along the way. It is not too far from the city center, so much easier to get to than our Chin and Lee villages. I did however find some interesting info on the Shum clan and the important lineages to get you started: sites.rootsweb.com/~chinesesurname/s067.html - Jeremy
|
|
kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 21, 2020 17:25:38 GMT -5
Doug, that’s very reassuring and fantastic to hear that you managed to get a hold of copies of the village zupu despite the village no longer existing. Thanks for those helpful tips on next steps—I will try to stay optimistic!
Jeremy, thanks for sharing that resource on the Shum surname with lots of great background information on the clan. Currently, I don’t have any more names besides my great-grandmother’s and, at least from my understanding, women’s names won’t be much help for matching with Chinese genealogy records… But, fortunately, my grandmother (her daughter) is still living and actually seems very willing to talk about our family history. Hoping to ask her about our Shum ancestors the next time I see my grandparents.
|
|
|
Post by jeremychin on Oct 21, 2020 21:17:35 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Henry on Oct 22, 2020 16:11:02 GMT -5
Kate, When your see your grandmother, please ask her if she know the general location of Ai Gang village, whether is is less than 2 miles due south of Taishan City (TaiCheng) or if it is near Duanfen area, which is located in the southern part of Taishan county: www.google.com/maps/place/Duanfen,+Taishan,+Guangdong,+Jiangmen,+Guangdong+Province,+China/@22.0508704,112.7474502,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x3401dd01d23f9e01:0x418cc67252951a42!2sHaiyang,+Taishan,+Guangdong,+Jiangmen,+Guangdong+Province,+China!3b1!8m2!3d22.052051!4d112.766146!3m4!1s0x3401dda9769a8bcd:0xb083359535eb23f!8m2!3d22.0508699!4d112.7562046?hl=en There is a Ai Gang village located in the Duanfen area, however, it is primarily a Moy village. But since there very few Shum villages in Taishan county, some of the Shum families may have lived in villages where another clan surname such as the Moy clan was the dominant clan of that village - ask her about that: villagedb.friendsofroots.org/display.cgi/subheung/105Village # 60 is Ai gang village, however, ask your grandmother if she recognizes the names of nearby villages. Henry
|
|
kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 22, 2020 16:56:52 GMT -5
Thanks so much for finding the Taishan Shum clan book, Jeremy! Wow, I'm indeed very lucky that it's uploaded and available so conveniently on FamilySearch.
And thanks, Henry, for locating that second Aigang village! I definitely would have accidentally overlooked it if you hadn't found it. Both villages seem plausible as locations for my great-grandmother's family, so I'll follow up with her as soon as I can to see if she can recall which location might be the correct village. That's a very good tip about asking if she can recall the neighbouring villages. I bet that strategy will work better than me showing her a map.
|
|
|
Post by Henry on Oct 22, 2020 18:29:51 GMT -5
Kate,
I suggest asking your grandmother if Ai gang village is primarily a Moy village.
Beyond satisfying one's curiosity, locating the ancestral village is important because there may be a copy of the village genealogy book, which would contain the family lineage.
Henry
|
|
kate
Member
Searching for Li (李) and Chin (陳) family information. Contact me at katechin232@gmail.com.
Posts: 13
|
Post by kate on Oct 22, 2020 19:29:00 GMT -5
Hi Henry, thanks for the additional suggestion. I'll be sure to include that in my questions for her.
|
|