HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE TONG & YAN CLANS

[helen]

Historical Roots of the Tong & Yan Clans
By William Kiejan Tong
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

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I originally wrote this article in 1995 for the Chicago chapter of the Tong-Yan Family Association, for the benefit of our American-Born Chinese ("ABC") cousins, based upon historical information told to me by my father, Jerry Tze Yuen Tong, who translated some of the information from our family genealogy book, which dates back some 60 or 70 years and was authored in part by his grandfather (my great-grandfather), Tong Yi Yuan.
For the benefit of readers, "Toysan" is the Cantonese pronunciation ("Taishan" in Mandarin) of the county/district in southern Guangdong (Kwangtung) province in China, on the west side of the Pearl River delta, across from the city of Guangzhou (Canton). The local dialect is a variant of Cantonese, with a number of differences in pronuciations, vocabulary, and tones. The Toysan dialect was brought overseas by Chinese immigrants and established in many Chinatowns across North America, where it is still spoken.



wktong.tripod.com/tongroots/

[chane]

The Chinese character should be easily spotted in the titles and topics. I had to dig around a bit before knowing whether this was the right Tang I was looking for.

[chane]

The character for the surname of article above does not show up when copied. It is "hot water" 汤 in the simplified form. "Hong" in the USA Siyi community.