Looking for 黄 ancestral village in Baisha Taishan

[miw03]

Hi all, I'm trying to locate my family's ancestral village but having some trouble finding an exact location. Is someone able to help? 

I had a friend help me with details which are from the tombstone of my grandmother's uncle.

Guangdong(province) 广东,
Taishan(city)台山,
Baisha (town)白沙節;
GongAn 公安 (public police)

I don't understand what the GongAn means. Are all the details here to locate the village?

Thanks in advance 

[Henry]

miw03

Please post the photo of the gravestone.

Henry

[miw03]

Hi Henry,

Please see photo of the gravestone below. 

Do you also know the line of text above his name in english means?

Many thanks.

[Henry]

miw03,

My OCR scan software & ChatGPT translation comes up with:

黄公立祥佳城

"Huang Public Lixiang Jiacheng"

a name or title, likely referring to a person (Huang) and possibly a place or institution (Lixiang Jiacheng)

Perhaps one of our Chinese literate colleagues can provide more information.

Henry

[gckimm]

Hi:

In regard to the line at the top, the words are 黄公立祥佳城. The last two characters, literally meaning "good city," are an ancient way of referring to a cemetery and are sometimes used to designate a grave. I notice that a lot of graves for Chinese residing in SE Asia use these characters.

The other characters are for the name of the deceased, 黄立祥, along with the traditional honorific for a man, 公, which can appear after the surname or after the personal name and preceding the surname.

As for the line about the native place, I find it a little mysterious. The character after 白沙 is jie/jit 節, which usually means "festival," so it doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe it was supposed to be 鄉 xiang/heung, which means township, and someone made a mistake? 公安 today refers to the police but here I think it is the name of a village, even though I cannot find a reference to a village in Taishan/Toishan by this name. (Note that there are villages elsewhere with this name.) The very bottom of the grave marker is cut off in the photo. I would like to see if there is a "village" character after those words.

Greg

[tsin.unfoon]

I agree with Greg. 白沙節 should be 白沙鄉
(Pak Sar Heung in Cantonese). It is now Baisha Town 白沙镇 in Taishan.
Full Address (EN) Baisha Town, Taishan City, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, China
Full Address (CN) 中国广东省江门市台山市白沙镇
Major Clans: 馬 Ma, 黃 Huang, 龔 Gong
GongAn 公安 should be the name of the village but you think there is a typo on the village name (most likely erred on the first character). I suggest check with your relatives or obtaining the immigration documents for your grandmother's side of the family.