What's The Best Way To Find Chinese Genealogy (Part II)?

Question

HI! Today is my first day on Yahoo! Answers. I am of Chinese ancestry and though my family's genealogy was already published my parents made us kids do menial task to earn our way in society, before they gave us any inkling of my/our family genealogy. So, if you are part Asian, perhaps, I can give you some advice. Hope it helps.

1. Most of my generation level (people of my age and peer circle) had to obey parents. Good and obedient kids got gifts and disobedient sons and daughters, often, were left out.

2. As many of us grew older, we did our own genealogy research in libraries (birth, death, and marriage records) as well as in public archives. We had to talk to older relatives and if they remembered that we were the good ones in childhood, the old folks were quite free with revealing the family tree and secrets.

a) You need to go to your area library and look for books talking about researching genealogy.
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b) You need to talk to your older relatives and parents and get as much information from them. In the case of Asians, Chinese and Japanese, knowing the family village or where you originally came from was one of the most important things.
c) Speak to your parent's friends. Speak to your grandparents and even to their friends and peer circle. Speak to anyone, who you may think can be of help. In America, even to church ministers!
d) Start committing what you've been told to paper. Put a short story of your family together, so you have a picture that you can follow and questions that you can ask the elders!
e) Go to your local library or University there may be advanced documentation there.

By doing all of the above, you should be able to develop some idea of where you came from and idea of what your family tree looks like.

f) Do Internet research and write to people and ask questions.

g) Help others and community non-profit groups along the way, so people will see you as a good person and not merely a leech on society asking for free information from others. No one likes a free loader and/or leech. In order to get you have to be a member of the community and help volunteer your time to help others. Non-profit groups and individuals. Make friends along the way and people will appreciate you and they will fill you cup to the brim and overflow it!

Today, I have a personal library of about 40 to 60 Chinese surname genealogy records (volumes) all going back well over 4,000 years. That's what it takes to be a good non-professional genealogist and sometimes the amateur will know more than the professional! I know, I've been there.

Yours,

zhou and guo

Answer 1

You have posted very valuable information. This is the path all new researchers should follow throughout their investigation into their family. I would only add one thing to it...and that is to document all of your research thoroughly so that you can revisit things when new resources become available to you and compare/contrast the accuracy of all the reference materials available to you.