Our Ancestral Village Family Registries

In China, clans or kinship ties are based patrilineal groups of related people with a common surname sharing a common ancestor. In southern China, these ties were often strengthened by a common ancestral village or home, where clans had common property and a common spoken patois that was unintelligible to outsiders. Following Confucian tradition, each family maintained a registry, called a Zupu 族譜 in Mandarin, that contained the clan's origin stories and its male lineage.

The background image for this website is a composite of three pages from the Hong and Chin family registries. The left and center pages were hand copied by my paternal grandfather, Hong Hock How, from our ancestral village registry in Dong On 東安, China (Taishan County, Guangdong). Hock How used a booklet made of thin, translucent paper with a hand-stitched, stab binding. The page on the right is from the introduction to my mother's Chin family registry for our ancestral village Chazhou 槎州 (Taishan County, Guangdong). My copy appears to have been photocopied several times. It also had a hand-stitched, stab binding, which I removed in order to digitize the book, then re-stitched myself. It was given to us by my grandmother, but its author is unknown.

In Chinese tradition, the eldest person in the clan was giving the very important task of maintaining the clan's registry. When families settled in a new area, they would take a copy of the registry from their old village to use as the starting registry for their new branch of the family. As a result, family lineages in China can be traced back dozens of generations and thousands of years, at a minimum going back a clan's first ancestor to settle in a county or province, and often going all the way back to a China's mythical past.

Hock How was following in this tradition when he made a copy of of the Zeng Family Registry prior to his voyage to the United States in 1915. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, many family registries were destroyed as relics of China's feudal past. Since China opened up in the 1980's, there has been a renewed interest in family genealogies as both local and overseas Chinese try to reconnect with their past. In some cases, family registries have been recreated from copies secretly hidden by village elders or preserved by the Chinese diaspora.

The individual entries in both the Hong and Chin registries have a fairly standard format listing the generation number, given name, aliases, the last names of wives, and the names of sons. Some entries also have the dates of birth and death using the Chinese calendar. Other entries will note where the person is buried.

Significant ancestors, including the ones who established new branches of the family, will have short biographical notes. All sections are written in Classical Chinese, which makes the commentaries, morale lessons, or historical notes hard to read and translate for people who only know vernacular Chinese (ie. modern spoken and written Chinese).

According to Wikipedia Classical Chinese:

"...appears extremely concise and compact to modern Chinese speakers, and to some extent [may] use of different lexical items (vocabulary). An essay in Classical Chinese, for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in vernacular Chinese to relate the same content.

"In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one syllable only....polysyllabic words [having] evolved in [vernacular] Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes."

Classical Chinese also frequently drops subjects and objects that are understood and uses literary and cultural allusions that further contribution to its brevity and opacity to modern readers.

Title Page of 1915 Zeng Family Registry 武城曾氏 - Wucheng Zeng Family [Wu Cheng is a city in Shandong, where our family founder, Zeng Shen, was born. Shen was disciple of Confucius and revered as one of the four Sages of Confucianism. He was also know as Zeng Zi.] 中華民國肆年歲次乙邓仲秋穀旦 - Autumn of the Fourth year of the Republic of China [1915] 自記家譜 - Self-recorded Family Registry 曉傳立 - Written by Xiao Chuan [Hong Hock How's married name]

Introduction to 1915 Zeng Family Genealogy 武城曾氏重修族譜 - Revised Wu Cheng Zeng Clan Registry 圖像所以追祖貌而廟後進也祖考形骸甫歸於土即欲一見終不得矣有圖像崴月雖久猶可令子孫揣其形容於萬一而景仰也故程子於影像而有取馬然必圖 品行卓絕聲震古今者方今孝思則效之心油然以起不然作畫矣又何益哉我族舊譜圖像甚多茲遵而梓之願見者思齊使後人視今如今之視音按圖數某德某顯某節烈則此圖也未必無小補雲集像圖 The purpose of portraits is to trace the appearance of ancestors and inspire later generations. Once the bodies of our forefathers have been interred in the earth, we can no longer see them. But with portraits, even after a long time, descendants can still imagine their countenance and revere them. That is why Cheng Zi valued portraits. However, portraits must depict those with exceptional moral conduct and illustrious reputations through the ages. Reflecting on their filial piety will naturally inspire the heart. Otherwise, the portraits serve no purpose. Our clan's old genealogy contained many portraits, which have been reprinted here. It is my wish that those who see them will aspire to emulate the virtues of our ancestors, so that later generations will look upon us as we now look upon our forefathers. The portraits depict the virtuous, the wise, and the just and heroic. Perhaps this collection of portraits may provide some small benefit.

Introduction to the Chen Family Registry 潁川源記畧 - Brief Record of Ying Chuan Clan's Origin. Ying Chuan is the name of a city in Henan where one of the largest and most prominent branches of the Chen family was founded in the 2nd Century CE. 陳氏舜後也舜居媯汭為媯氏又居姚墟以姚為姓禹受禪封舜子[ ] [This introduction recounts the Ying Chuan Clan's origin story. The Chen family is descended from Shun Di, the last of the mythical five emperors, Their original surname was Gui 媯. In 1150 BCE, 32 generations later, Gui Man 媯滿, was granted the title of Marquis of the State of Chen by the Emperor Wu Wang 武王 from the Zhou Dynasty. Later known as Chen Hu Gong 陳胡公, he is the founder of the Chen clan.] Translation tbd...

Chin Family Generation Naming Poem:

世德賜光裕 明廷擢茂良 學宜宗孔孟 華國以文章	From generations past, whence virtue's light does shine The worthy does the court of wisdom find Let learning be led by the Sages' hands, China rises by pen and written stands
星朗聚群賢 堂高恆自耀 鳳鳴昌奕嗣 源遠乃彌長	Bright stars gather, the wise in counsel meet Grand halls, shine constant in their feat The phoenix sings, as succeeding generations flow From distant sources, the river's length does grow

Word-by-word Translation and Notes:
世德賜光裕	1. 世德 (shì dé) - Generational virtue 2. 賜 (cì) - Bestows 3. 光裕 (guāng yù) - Brightness and abundance
明廷擢茂良	4. 明廷 (míng tíng) - Enlightened (Ming) court 5. 擢 (zhuó) - Selects 6. 茂良 (mào liáng) - Outstanding and good
學宜宗孔孟	7. 學宜 (xué yí) - Study should 8. 宗 (zōng) - Follow 9. 孔孟 (Kǒng Mèng) - Confucius and Mencius
華國以文章	10. 華國 (huá guó) - The Chinese nation 11. 以 (yǐ) - Through 12. 文章 (wén zhāng) - Literature
明賜進士翰林院檢討, 新會陳獻章撰(世稱白沙子).	Written by Chen Xianzhang from Xinhui (better known as Baisha Zi), who was bestowed with the title of Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty, and served as a reviewer in the Hanlin Academy.
星朗聚群賢	13. 星朗 (xīng lǎng) - Stars brightly 14. 聚 (jù) - Gather 15. 群賢 (qún xián) - Group of wise men
堂高恆自耀	16. 堂高 (táng gāo) - Hall stands tall 17. 恆 (héng) - Constantly 18. 自耀 (zì yào) - Shining by itself
鳳鳴昌奕嗣	19. 鳳鳴 (fèng míng) - Phoenix sings 20. 昌 (chāng) - Prosper 21. 奕嗣 (yì sì) - Successive generations
源遠乃彌長	22. 源遠 (yuán yuǎn) - Source is distant 23. 乃 (nǎi) - Thus 24. 彌長 (mí cháng) - Extending far
清探花及第, 東莞陳伯陶 (官至太史)	Chen Baotao form Donguan achieved the third place (Tanhua) rank in the Qing Dynasty imperial exam, and held the position of Grand Historian.
上列兩班派聯由十一世起至五十世用....	The above two generational poems are to be used from the 11th to the 50th generation....