Villages in Dongguan on the Huanbao River

[kristy]

Hello Siyi members,

Can someone please help check my interpretations of some village names/locations please? If my research is correct, all of the four villages mentioned below are close to the Huanbao River in Dongguan County. Can someone please let me know if I've got it right?

• 周 clan from 屋下 村 Wuxia village, 常平镇 Changpingzhen, 東莞縣 Dongguan County. (NB he died in Tamworth, NSW, Australia).
• 大崀 镇, 水口村 Dongguan County
• 大江头 Dongguan County
• 任聯興 (he was known as Yum Hing, but I don't know what the other characters are). Born 1851 Lived in Tamworth, NSW, Australia. Died 1938/3/18 in Liverpool, NSW, Australia. The grave indicates he was from 東官金尾村 which I've translated as Dongguan Gin Wei Village. However, it's an odd way to write Dongguan. Could this be a mis-transcription by a Chinese person in Australia who was not completely literate in Chinese characters? Or I have misinterpreted this? One thing that leads me to think I may be correct is that there is a 金尾村 in Changpingzhen. Yum Hing's cousin was a 周 and most likely also from Changpingzhen like his 周 associate mentioned above.

Finally, I have found two articles which I think are about the 周 ancestral hall for Wuxia village, Changpingzhen. I've looked at a translated version of the pages but want to be sure that I'm not mistakenly looking at articles about the completely wrong village. 

kknews.cc/culture/aj639v.html

kknews.cc/culture/8en4vrl.html

The article indicates that an updated 周 clan genealogy was completed a few years back and that copies were sent to descendants in Australia. If the article does indeed relate to the 周 clan that I'm researching, I would love to be able to get a copy of the Zupu and better still, if there are any 周 descendants from any of these villages on here or indeed anyone from those villages, I would love to hear from you. I'd also love to hear from you if you have Dongguanese ancestors who lived in Tamworth.

For context, Yum Hing was the husband of my Irish-Australian gg grandaunt. Villages two and three are the villages of my cousin's parents (I found her through DNA and we haven't figured out how we connect). I have Chinese ancestry myself, however my grandfather didn't know anything about his Chinese father. My theory is that if I've correctly determined the locations of all four villages, then I have Dongguanese ancestry and that my ancestor may well have been known to either my gg grandaunt and/or her husband.

Thank you and best wishes,

Kristy (in Melbourne, Australia)

[clotildeyap@mychinaroots]

Hi Kristy,

First, 任聯興 is Ren Lian Xing in pinyin, or Yum Lien Hing in Canto. He must have used Yum Hing as a shortened version of his name.

From what I can see the 1st 3 villages are definitely within close proximity, while Gin Wei尾村 doesn't appear on GoogleMaps. I did find a fb obituary post of a lady (surname Yum) who died in 廣東 東莞長平金尾村 Guangdong, Dongguan, Changping, Jinwei (Gin Wei) Village. Here the spelling of the character "Chang" in Changping" does not match the same Chang in 常平镇 but it could easily be a typo; I doubt it is a coincidence!

As for the spelling of Dongguan in 東官金尾村: yes, it could be a person in Australia who couldn't remember how to spell Guan, but 東官 also happens to be an older spelling for the region of Dongguan, used in the 6th cent. AD.

Technically the 2 articles are about the Zhou clan of Qiaozi 橋梓 Village which neighbors Wuxia Village (for all intents and purposes though, same thing 🙂 ) and indeed mentions a zupu for the Zhou clan of Changping

If you're keen to get the zupu how about I put you in touch with our researchers? They'll be best placed not only to get a copy of the zupu but also help u figure out if it's indeed yours and connect with people in the villages. Villagers would only be open to sharing the zupu with distant family, so we'd need all the names of your ancestors in Chinese you can provide.

[kristy]

Thank you so much for your help, Clotilde! It’s much appreciated.