Comments for Chinese Genealogy

Comment on Hoisanva (Taishanese) 台山話 – Lesson 1 by Jacob Kilvington

Jacob Kilvington — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:33:57 +0000

Great!!! That’s juts wonderful!
I was looking for something like that, but it’s not easy to find Taishanese lessons. Thanks for sharing! ( Gonna learn it)

Comment on Chinese surnames and spelling variations by Andrew Jung

Andrew Jung — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:04:46 +0000

Oops, scratch the Chang and Jang. I was just talking to my dad and the Chang came from my dad’s sister-in-law which doesn’t have the same last name. But yes, please add Jung for 鄭 as there are quite a number of us in Canada that ended up with this spelling.

Comment on Chinese surnames and spelling variations by Andrew Jung

Andrew Jung — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:57:08 +0000

鄭 – please also add Jung, Chang, and Jang from Cantonese and local dialects. I have family members (including myself) with these spellings for 鄭. Thanks for having this list!

Comment on Xinhui County by woodson

woodson — Sat, 05 May 2012 23:24:24 +0000

In order to trace your ancestor’s village of origin you need to know the county and the name of the villages, ideally in Chinese characters. Have their names in Chinese characters would also help.

Comment on Xinhui County by Ed Chock

Ed Chock — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:28:20 +0000

I am a descendant of the Hee Chock and Tong Shee Chock Family. I am trying to find my Grandparents Family. I was able to find out that he came from Canton (Guangdong Province) maybe Sun Woy, Xinhui. My daughter and I are planning to visit China in the near future for Chinese New Year. What do I need to do to find his family and where he actually lived or came from? Both migrated to Hawaii in the late 1800.

Comment on Hoisanva (Taishanese) 台山話 – Lesson 9 by Gene Chin

Gene Chin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:29:25 +0000

Hi Judy,

Hoisinva is a spoken language. Thus, many Hoisanva words do not have corresponding Chinese characters. Some people have attempted to create new characters for these words. However, there is no standard, and you would not find these characters in Chinese dictionaries. This is the reason for my Romanization, i.e., to preserve the sound of the words.

The opposite is not true. Every Chinese character does have a Hoisanva sound. Thus you can read modern Chinese or classical Chinese in the Hoisanva dialect. I’ve created a Hoisanva English Dictionary (HED) and will discuss with our webmaster how to best present this on the web.

I don’t believe there are any classes anywhere in the world being taught in Hoisanva. When I was a child all my classes were in Hoisanva. The only thing that was in Mandarin was the national anthem.

I’m in the East Coast. I visited my daughter’s family a couple of weeks ago in San Diego. We plan to visit more often in the near future.

Regards,
Gene

Comment on Hoisanva (Taishanese) 台山話 – Lesson 1 by Gene Chin

Gene Chin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:24:53 +0000

Hi Steven,

When “Ah” is placed in front of a name, the name could be a given name or a family name. If it is a given name, there are many possible Chinese characters. If it is a family name, it narrows the field a bit. Cheong or Chong, in my opinion, is most likely to be Zhāng (pinyin) 张 (simplified Chinese) or 張 (traditional Chinese). According to the 2007 census in Mainland China, 張 was the third largest family with 87,502,000 people. According to the 2005 census in Taiwan, 張 was the fourth largest family in Taiwan. According to the 2000 census in the United States, 張 ranked 11th (with 62,900 people) among Asian Pacific Americans. These numbers can be found in Wikipedia articles.

As to where your great-great-grandfather came from, I refer you to two forums on this genealogy site:
1. http://siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=names
2. http://siyigenealogy.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=maps

The first forum has over 3,000 posts on Chinese genealogy. The second forum (with about 1,500 posts) could guide you to find your ancestor’s village.

Regards,
Gene

Comment on Hoisanva (Taishanese) 台山話 – Lesson 1 by Steve Dixon

Steve Dixon — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:00:55 +0000

Most Esteemed Uncle:

Sometime prior to 1880, my great-great-grandgather left the Xi Yip because he was somehow involved in an altercation with the Hakka people. He went to Cuba as a “coolie” by way of Macao. Eventually, he became a baker in Cuba. We know very little about him because he died in 1921 and told his children almost nothing about himself or about the Xi Yip. Some of the cousins say his name was “Ah Chong” but others say his name was “Cheong.” In addition to learning some Hoisanva from your Web-site, I am also curious to know which of these two surnames would most likely be our true family name. I am also curious to know whether, by surname, I could ever know whether he was from Duanfen, Gauanghai, Chixi, etc.

Thank you so much!

Comment on Chinese Genealogy by Juan Victor Andres

Juan Victor Andres — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:17:27 +0000

Me llamo Juan Chau Chang, Mi padre peruano fue Amador Alejandro Chau Jo, Su padre fue Aljandro Chau, quien vino de China (Cantón) al Perú a inicios de 1900, llegando al Calao con un primo. Se afincaron por la pequeña ciudad de San Vicente de Cañete, al sur de Lima, donde nació mi padre.
Deseo saber mas de la ascendencia o que datos debo buscar entre mis parientes para hacer mi genalogía. Sé que tenemos algún parentesco con los Johnson (ingles)

Comment on Hoisanva (Taishanese) 台山話 – Lesson 9 by Judy Young

Judy Young — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:43:24 +0000

Hi Gene,

Thank you for your response. I was trying to follow lesson 10 and realized there is so much I DO NOT KNOW!!! Is there anyway, the Chinese characters can accompany the conversation?

Can you believe it…I took 6 years of Chinese School in San Francisco and I feel like I lost most of it. Also, regular Cantonese was taught..not Hoisan Va. What a shame.

I am glad people like you are keeping this language alive!

Do you happen to live in SF or LA? I live in S CAL.

Again, thank you!

Judy Young