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Post by harc3 on Apr 18, 2009 10:21:33 GMT -5
Well!!!! The call to my relatives in China was made last night. We used skype as my translator lives elsewhere. A bit unfortunate though as the connection in the village kept dropping out. I was honored to also have Helen in on it. I had most of my family here, my brother on skype, translator on skype, Helen on skype and in China there was my great nephew, my nephew, 2 nieces (still another niece in Hong Kong who wasn't present)and my sister-in-law (my dad's sons wife)present. It was awesome!!! Through the conversation I learned my Grandfather's birth name SHUM Yee Chong. That my father's sister died 30 yrs ago (around the same time as my dad). Her 3 daughters, 1 in Xintang and another nearby and also 1 went to New Zealand. My grandfather sent letters and money home. My father went back to China in the 1930s (which I have the documents for) and got married. Then returned to Canada. My niece in Hong Kong looked after my dad's wife until she passed away. The biggest and most shocking news I learned was my Dad has a brother living in Guangzhou. He is 88 and they had just spoken with him the day before as they knew we were calling and informed him of everything. We had NO idea he had a brother. My family keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's been an amazing experience and I encourage all to seek out their heritage and family. I am so glad to have done this genealogy. Like I said it's incredible and amazing what I have uncovered. The whole conversation is still overwhelming thinking about it. They asked that we/I come over and see them. I am definitely going hopefully sooner than later. I now have all their names as well. Hopefully talk to them again soon
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Post by harc3 on May 8, 2009 13:38:24 GMT -5
I am in the process of making my family tree. I have quite a few names in Chinese. This one of my nephew, Shen Kiel Ying, I need in written form instead of image form. I have the character for the first and last one but can't seem to find the middle character. I was wondering if someone could help and what it means Thanks
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Post by Henry on May 8, 2009 14:23:49 GMT -5
harc3, Here is the type version: 橋 You should check out the following tools - they are invaluable for people like me - who cannot read or write Chinese: 1 "MWSnap" - a screen capture program: www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html2 "COCR2" - an OCR program to convert images of Chinese characters into actual Chinese text script: users.belgacom.net/chardic/cocr2.html COCR2 Tutorial: users.belgacom.net/chardic/html/tutorial_cocr2.html3 "Nciku" [http://www.nciku.com/ ] - a program for using your computer mouse to draw Chinese characters and converts it into Chinese text script and provides the Pinyin romanization and serves as a English - Chinese dictionary 4 "Google" - provides super language capabilities: www.google.com/language_tools?hl=enCOCR2 handles well over 90 % of the scans of printed Chinese characters & even some handwritten Chinese characters, however, when it does not recognize the character - I go to Nciku and simulate the Chinese character with my mouse and I usually am able to get it - I used Nciku to get the typed version of this character for you. When you use MWSnap to capture images of Chinese characters on your computer monitor or saving scans of pages with Chinese characters- save it as a .bmp image. COCR only loads .bmp images. Henry
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Post by harc3 on May 8, 2009 14:53:01 GMT -5
Thanks Henry!!! And those links...love it Can make life a little easier...actually a whole lot easier
Thanks
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Post by harc3 on May 8, 2009 16:28:38 GMT -5
Laohuaqiao or anyone else. I have these as the names of my auntie's children. I can't seem to get them translated into names though 个å«é˜¿ç¬‘,一个å«é˜¿çº¢.一个å«é˜¿è¡Œ The first one I am led to believe is Ao Xiao...don't know if the spelling is correct. Also need to know their surname for my tree. The first 3 characters of each name are all the same I appreciate any help Thanks
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Post by Henry on May 8, 2009 20:29:39 GMT -5
harc3,
Please post these names an an image. I have tried several encodings to view your Chinese characters, but, they are still somewhat scrambled.
Henry
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Post by laohuaqiao on May 8, 2009 21:01:38 GMT -5
harc3, These are not the complete names of the your cousins. They are 3 sentences. Translation: 一个叫阿笑 One is called A Xiao 一个叫阿红 One is called A Hong 一个叫阿行 One is called A Xing
一 (yi) is numeral one in Chinese; 个 (ge) is a measure word for a person (a bit of grammar here, every Chinese noun gets a measure word, in this case a person is understood as the noun, not like English where all you need is a numeral and a noun)
叫 means "called". 阿 (A) is used in Cantonese and other dialects but not in Mandarin together with a person's name when you address someone informally.
阿笑, 阿红 and 阿行 would be how your aunt would call her 3 children. Their surnames are not given here, and their given name may not be complete either, usually there are 2 characters in the given name, but it is possible to have only one.
Henry, I had to set text encoding to unicode, more specifically UTF-8.
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Post by harc3 on May 8, 2009 22:37:04 GMT -5
Great....thank you Laohuaqiao
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Post by harc3 on May 16, 2009 13:27:28 GMT -5
When my grandfather was alive he gave us all Chinese names. We know the English of them but I am trying to figure out the Chinese for them. Excuse the spelling Bo ling (or bo lene) 波玲 Bo yook (sound rhymes with hook) can't find the characters (both the above born in August) Ding yu ä¸æŸ³ (closest I found) Ding wah å®šåŽ Fook Sang ç¦ç”Ÿ Sang Fa (or Shang and ryhmes with law)å°šå‘
encoding unicode utf-8
Does anyone know if I have ANY of them right?
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Post by laohuaqiao on May 16, 2009 17:49:54 GMT -5
I think for feminine names, Bo Ling 宝玲 (Bao Ling) or 宝莲 (Bao Lian), Bo Yook 宝玉 (Bao Yu) are quite common.
For the masculine name, there are many possibilities for each character, your translations for Wah and Fook are probably correct.
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Post by harc3 on May 18, 2009 12:13:21 GMT -5
Thanks laohuaqiao At least I have a start....I have emailed my great nephew to try and get the characters for his mother Liu Huan Huang. Have the characters for almost all (that I know of) my family in China except all the 一个å«é˜¿ç¬‘ One is called A Xiao 一个å«é˜¿çº¢ One is called A Hong 一个å«é˜¿è¡Œ One is called A Xing But am working on getting those as well....then just gotta figure out the rest of us "Canadians" Another question....like I said in above post, my grandfather gave us Chinese names, BUT he died before my youngest brother was born....Any idea how to get him a name??
encoding unicode utf-8
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Post by harc3 on May 19, 2009 22:16:20 GMT -5
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Post by Woodson on May 20, 2009 16:39:44 GMT -5
This is the text which is a literal translation: 是你的母親還活著嗎? 你能給我的字符為您的母親的名字? 你有沒有更多的圖片,您可以給我? 照片,你的父母,祖母,祖父,所有阿姨,村等, 你能还包括字符的名称,每张图片? 發送一個鏈接 GENI。您必須加入,然後您可以看到家譜。有些可能是錯誤的還是 您可能需要翻譯的網頁上的在線翻譯 感谢你的所有图片,您可以给我 你伟大的叔叔 Just love the last where it translated the great as "Great" in Peter. This person is your nephew's child or there is another generation layer? The reason I ask is to determine your title at the end of the letter. BTW the spoken words are in Mandarin. Anyway here is what I think you want to say: 您寄來的照相片已收到了,多謝。 不知您的母親是否還健全?您寄來的中文名字是不是您母親的?不知您有沒有您祖父母、父母、姑叔伯等人及鄉村的照相片? 如果有及方便的話,可否寄幾張給我留念?同時請在相片後面寫上各人的名字。謝謝。 如果您是GENI會員,您就能夠看到我輸入的家譜資料。很抱歉這些資料是不齊全及有不少錯誤,同時這些資料是英文並非中文,如有不便之處,敬希原諒。順告,參加GENI是免費的; 此祝 大家安好! 叔祖謹啟 Thank you for your photographs. Is your mother still living? The Chinese name you sent me is that your mother's? Do you have photographs of your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and the village? Could you send me some for keep sake? Please write the people's names on the back of the photos. Thanks. If you are a member of GENI you would be able to see the family tree data that I've input. Sorry these data aren't complete, has errors and in English. Please forgive me if it causes any inconvenience. BTW joining GENI is free. Give everybody my regards, Great Uncle For some reason not all the Chinese characters are displayed properly. Please see the attached jpg file
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Post by harc3 on May 20, 2009 17:23:43 GMT -5
Thanks Woodson So I guess it kinda sorta doesn't work too too well but does a bit This is what it was supposed to say
"Is your mother still alive? Can you give me the characters for your mother's name?
Do you have any more pictures, you can give me? Photos, your parents, grandmother, grandfather, all the aunts, village, etc. You can also include the names of characters in each picture? Send a link to GENI. You must join, and then you can see the family tree. Some of them may be wrong or You may need to translate the page on-line translation
Thank you for all the pictures, you can give me
Your great uncle Rick"
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Post by Woodson on May 20, 2009 18:29:09 GMT -5
By
Send a link to GENI
You mean for sending the photo to you? Or...
Would this person know what you are referring to?
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