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Post by chrismilton on Feb 20, 2021 18:37:46 GMT -5
Hi all,
My grandfather's surname is Chin and he was born in Guyana to a Chinese father (Chin Wee Fat) and a Guyanese mother. From what I may have found, Chin Wee Fat may have gone under another name at some point, probably prior to his move to Georgetown, Guyana. It may have been either Chinn Yet Sang or Chin Wee Sang, I'm not 100% on either but I know for a fact that it was Chin Wee Fat in Guyana as my grandfather took the whole name as his legal surname. He was sent to live in England with his aunt back when he was 10 so unfortunately knows very little about his father's Chinese family or his own Chinese heritage. All that he's been able to tell me is that he's certain his father came from Canton, but I'm not sure if he means Guangdong as the whole province or specifically Guangzhou. However, my grandmother (his ex-wife) is certain that he told her back when they were married that his father was from Hong Kong, and they're both getting on in age so either one of them could be right however I'm leaning more towards my grandfather's knowledge.
What I want to know is, with a lack of any documents, photographs, gravestone etc, is there anything I could do to find out more information? Or will this lack of information mean that I've reached a dead end?
Many thanks,
Chris
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Post by jeremychin on Feb 21, 2021 17:28:05 GMT -5
Hi Chris,
Without any concrete information, it is going to be tough to find what you are looking for. You will have to do a lot more in-depth research to get there. Here are a couple of things to think about to get you started.
Where did you find the names of Chinn Yet Sang and Chin Wee Sang?
Does anyone in your family write Chinese and are they able to write the names of your great-grandfather in Chinese characters?
Do you know or can find out when Chin Wee Fat came to Guyana from Canton?
Where did he pass? You should try to find out where he is buried. A picture of the gravestone could potentially be a really big help at identifying a place of birth and his name in Chinese characters.
Is there a Chin association or even just a Chinese association in Georgetown? Could be possible that he was apart of it when he was there and they may have some records of his membership?
Mention some of the more famous place names to your grandfather to see if they ring a bell. Like Toisan, Hoiping Sunwui, Zhongsan, Yanping, Panyu etc. Canton is sometimes referred to as Guangdong province or more commonly Guangzhou the city. But a lot of times, people said they were from Canton as others are more familiar with the term vs. the specific counties or towns. So I understand how this can be confusing. More than likely your family was not originally from HK. Most families came to Hong Kong from other places.
The other thing you should try is to have your grandfather do a DNA test like 23andme. For instance, even though I know the village and ancestry of my paternal grandmother, the DNA test gave a 1st cousin match with my grand aunt. So, if I happened to know nothing, I would have had a chance to get a lot of information potentially that way.
Hope this helps a bit. Any questions, just let me know.
- Jeremy
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Post by limwalter on Mar 22, 2021 3:49:43 GMT -5
Hi Rudy, I had a response from my contact in Xiamen. She reminded me of another search for another Chen/Tan (陳) person in Malaysia we were assisting in February 2013 to locate his ancestral village also in ShanYang (山仰) ; Haicang District (海沧街道) ; Hai Teng (海澄縣) County ; Zhangzhou [漳 州] Prefecture (it's now in Xiamen Prefecture); Fujian Province [福 建 省]. My contact in Xiamen and the driver there (both were originally from Indonesia but must had returned to China during the turbulent times in Indonesia around 1965) took him to the ancestral hall in ShanYang (山仰). I understand there could be at least 2 ancestral halls for Tan clan in ShanYang (山仰). See images below for the ShanYang (山仰) signboard and one of the ancestral halls. This Tan (陳) friend could only find bits and pieces of the Tan genealogy as the zupu/jiapu was no longer available. From my observation in the past finding ancestral records along the coastal belt of Fujian seem not to be available. This was borne out by my Xiamen contact when she said that out of the 70 villages she encountered, she only managed to obtain four jiapus/zupus. Getting them in Anxi, Yongchun and Nan’an seem to be much easier. The Tan friend did manage to get the family history (21 pages) prepared on March 2009 by one Tan Thean Thor; 81 year old then from the Shan Yang Village. It is in Chinese and I forward that to you. I shall you a personal message regarding my email contact. This Tan friend ancestors originally must had settled in Taiping; not far from Penang. These are some of the details of his ancestors” “Great Great Grand Father & Great Great Grand Mother (paternal): Tan Or Seet & Gan Kheok Neoh ( born & died in China) Great Grand Father & Great Grand Mother (paternal): Tan Kang Or & Tan Chew Jeong Neoh (born in China & died in Padang Sumatra) Grand Father & Grand Mother: Tan Teong Hoo & Teoh Hum Seow (grandfather born in China & died in Taiping)” His chart I had assembled for him is given below: If you or anyone of your family members should want to visit ShanYang (山仰) again, I would suggest you could get into contact with my Xiamen contact and the driver. You then should not have any problem in communicating as my contact speaks Indonesia, Dutch, some English and of course Chinese. Below in the first episode of CCTV documentary where it featured another ex-Indonesia search for her Chinese roots with her Dutch husband. Towards the end she gave a speech in Dutch. The translator is my contact in Xiamen. When you refer to your grandfather' funeral card, would that be the document written out by the Taoist priest (in consultation with the family) for recitation during the funeral ceremony where it would contain the ancestral address in China as well as all the names of the mourners? In obituary published in Chinese newspaper, very often I see the ancestral address is also provided.
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Post by limwalter on Mar 22, 2021 3:54:20 GMT -5
Hi Philip I refer to above the post, how you get the chart? My friend is related to this tan family, how can I contact you?
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Post by philiptancl on Mar 25, 2021 2:05:52 GMT -5
Hi Limwalter,
I have forwarded you my contacts through personal message in this Forum.
Philip Tan
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Post by chane on Sept 10, 2021 8:59:16 GMT -5
I've heard that some new clan books record contemporary unmaried males by birth names, same sex partners, transliterated non-Chinese names, and even some will list females. Is this the case with the main Guangdong Chen records?
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Post by raychel88 on Feb 2, 2022 15:38:28 GMT -5
Hello Chris, My great great grandfather Alex Chin Kee Fatt was from Hong Kong. He worked on ships in Guyana (British Guiana) then met my great great grandmother Jane Agard (they weren’t married). He unfortunately disappeared and possibly moved to Trinidad . I’ve been researching the surname and I’m not finding any information on it. I was told that sometimes they changed the spellings of the surnames when when they arrived. Have you gotten any closer with finding information on your relatives. Did you by any chance take any dna test?
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Post by deeels on Jun 17, 2022 22:44:02 GMT -5
Hi all,
My long deceased great-grandfather Chin Sang 陈 生 was a Hakka Chinese who was born in 1895 and migrated to Borneo when he was a young man. I recently discovered on his (also deceased) daughter's birth record that he was from Kon Lan , Guangzhou. Corrobating this with information from a DNA match of my mom (who is Chin Sang's granddaughter) - we believe that Chin Sang's ancestral village is Village Malik (?Malak or Mali) which was near the Kon Lan market. From my personal research, I think that the location of the village coincides with the Long Hua subdistrict of Shenzhen, Guangzhou in modern times (the DNA match had inform us that the ancestral home does not exist anymore).
I am interested to know more about my mother's Chin genealogy and am reaching up in the hopes of locating a Zupu. I have been actively building the family tree but feel that Ive hit a road block in my family research since I cannot read/write in Chinese.
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cwf
Member
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Post by cwf on Jul 16, 2022 18:25:00 GMT -5
Hi my father name is Chinweefat and he was from Guyana his father was Chinese
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chen
Member
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Post by chen on Jul 20, 2022 9:20:04 GMT -5
I have belatedly found this forum and this thread. I have spent the last hour and half skimming through every single post, and wow, what wonderful information, thanks to all those who has contributed in the past few years.
Is it possible to check in with you to see if you have any information regarding my "branch" of the Chen family? We hail from Xinhui County (新會). I have one name, 陳文興 (unsure if it is a courtesy name or another type), who was born in Xinhui maybe around 1880; he migrated to California or somewhere else in western United States. Another name, 陳南, born in Xinhui in 1904; fought in WW2 with ROC Air Force and relocated to Taiwan in 1949. I'm sorry this is not a lot to work with, but I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers. Thanks!
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Post by Doug 周 on Jul 20, 2022 18:04:07 GMT -5
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chen
Member
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Post by chen on Jul 21, 2022 7:54:31 GMT -5
Thank you Doug! Unfortunately the you posted is inaccessible to me as well (Chrome error "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN" - doesn't exist?). Philip sent me a wonderful guide to start hunting down some information. No luck yet, but I will keep investigating and share any major progress here.
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Post by Doug 周 on Jul 21, 2022 10:50:22 GMT -5
Sorry about the link, which is squirrelly. On certain browsers it works intermittently. I cannot get the webmaster to problem solve since it always works for him/her. For the past week it has worked on my browsers, so I will make the unusual statement: you will have to train your cookies. Try weekly and see if you can force it to work, like I was eventually able to do.
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chen
Member
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Post by chen on Jul 21, 2022 11:46:00 GMT -5
Hello Jason, I'm not sure if you are still active on this forum. I belatedly came across your 2019 posting regarding your girlfriend having traced her lineage back to a Chen Wensheng (陳文盛). Philip had dated the document you provided to 1906.
I have an ancestor by the name of Chen Wenxing (陳文興), and he was alive at 1906 as well. As far as I know, he hails from Xinhui County (新會) in Guangdong Province in southern China.
Could the two be of the same generation, since they share the same character as the first character of their given names? I'd love to hear of your findings thus far and compare notes. Thanks!
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chen
Member
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Post by chen on Jul 21, 2022 11:57:19 GMT -5
Doug, thanks for mentioning browsers. While my Chrome still won't open the site, my Firefox opened it no problem!
Unfortunately, no match on names with that (wonderful) site.
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