Looking for a village in Kaiping,龍岡里

[dragon008]

Hi all,

I am helping a friend, Willie, finding his ancestral village (關) in Kaiping, Longgangli (龍岡里) village. From the Village DB, there are 6 龍岡/崗里, but none associated with the 關 clan. From the gravestone, the village information are 廣東開平縣桔荣鄉龍岡里, but the township or heung, my best guess is 桔荣鄉, which doesn’t appear in Village DB for Kwan (關) nor the village, 龍岡里. The passenger manifest listed the village name as Lung Young Lee Vil. In the attachments are photos of the village gate, ancestral hall building, and gravestone of Willie’s father. Can someone help correct the heung and locate the village?
Also, I had a problem reading the gravestone, the Quon 關 surname follow by the two characters that I could not make out, can someone help?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Dragon088

[LJ]

Hi dragon008,

Thank you for your post. After looking at the two photos of the gravestone of Willie’s father and at the Village DB's entries for heungs in Kaiping (開平), I think the character

桔

in the heung name

桔荣鄉

is actually

梧,

and the character

荣

is actually a variant (now known as the Simplified variant) of

榮.

So, in Traditional Chinese characters, the correct heung name is

梧榮鄉.

The Village DB entry for this heung is:

villagedb.friendsofroots.org/display.cgi/heung/195

Unfortunately, no village by the name of 龍岡里 is listed for this heung.

Nevertheless, the major map websites do list a 龍岡里, in Simplified Chinese as

龙冈里,

or more simply as

龙冈,

or alternatively, but still simplified as

龙岗,

near the town of

Chikan (赤坎)

in Kaiping (開平):

Map Website	Name in Chinese	Name in English	URL
百度地图 (Baidu Map)	龙冈		j.map.baidu.com/58/-P6i
Google Maps	龙冈里	Longgangli	maps.app.goo.gl/TgCRdkn14cE75HGc8
OpenStreetMap	龙冈里	Longgangli	www.openstreetmap.org/node/8128044565
天地图 (Map World)	龙岗		map.tianditu.gov.cn/2020/ > In the 搜索位置 (Search Location) box, enter "广东开平赤坎龙岗" > Of the records found, select 1

广东开平赤坎龙岗 is the Simplified Chinese for 廣東開平赤坎龍崗.

This village might be Willie's ancestral 關 village of 龍岡里 in 開平.

As for unknown character

(?)

in the Chinese name

關兆(?)

for Willie's father Tony Quon Lew, the left side looks like

耳,

the bottom right corner seems to be

心.

and the top right might be

𠮦

with the upper right stroke rotated clockwise by nearly 45°, and the right side of the lower part,

口,

rotated inwards by 45°.

If all that is correct, then the unknown character is

聪,

so that Tony Quon Lew's Chinese name is

關兆聪.

Cheers!
LJ

[Henry]

LJ,

Great job drilling down.

As you know, i cannot read or write Chinese, so I had one of my friends type the correct chinese characters:

梧榮鄉龍岡里

梧荣乡龙冈里

Wú róng xiāng lóng gāng lǐ

Like you I found the village near Chikan

Cheers,

Henry

[dragon008]

Thank you LJ for the valuable insights on solving the unknown characters, heung, village and name, as well as the Village DB entry and map websites. And thanks to Henry for your input. My friend, Willie, will be pleased with the findings. For the past few years, the Siyi genealogy forum has been very helpful with my past inquiries. Many thanks to all.

[LJ]

Thanks, Henry. That confirms the heung name.

Can you ask your friend to double check what I found for the unknown character in Tony Quon Lew's Chinese name?

Or patrick.chew, can you double check?

Please have a great Sunday, everyone!

LJ

[LJ]

No problem, dragon008. I'm glad to help.

LJ