Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Dimsum.co.uk - In print again

http://www.dimsum.co.uk/community/new-zealand-born-chinese.html


New Zealand Born Chinese

Community
I am a descendant of Poll Tax payers to New Zealand and I have been workingon recording stories from elders in the community. I have been privledged tosee photos albums, and to talk to them about the past, the prejudices andhardships - The life they had here compared with family left back home.Chinese New Year 2002 - the Government of New Zealand formally apologisedto the Poll Tax payers and their decendants for the actions of previousGovernments in imposing a poll tax on Chinese persons entering New Zealandand in enacting other discriminatory statutes.As part of this apology, Government has supported the establishment of theChinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust, and, in 2005, paid to this Trust the sum of$5,000,000 as a gesture of reconciliation in support of the formal apology.This has seen a resurgence of Chinese history - and a book Zengcheng NewZealanders was launched in August 2006, on the 80th anniversary of The TungJung Association of New Zealand, founded in 1926 by Chinese who came to NewZealand from the Jungsen and Dong Guan districts in the Guangdong provincein Southern China.Life in New Zealand in the 1920s was difficult for the Chinese. There weremany prejudices to overcome both socially and in business. In 1926 a groupof progressive and far-sighted people from Jung Shing and Dong Guan countiesdecided to form an association for mutual help in a country far from home.Thus was born the NZ Tung Jung Association - the first Chinese communityorganisation to be established in New Zealand. The primary objective of theAssociation is to unite and maintain the identity and kinship of those whoclaim affinity to the counties of Jung Shing and Tung Quan and theirdescendants.I am proud that my Grandfather was one of the original members of theassociation and want my children and future generations to recognise thepart that our ancestors played in NZ society. There are many more storiesleft to tell.A new project is the Wong Clan from Gwa Liang Village (Melon Collar) -recording the genealogy from 1150 to 2006 - 26 generations.My blog gives an insight to our life here in New Zealand - and I'm sure our experiences have been replicated in so many countries in the world. No matter where our ancestors went - the experiences were the same. http://nzbornchinese.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 25, 2006

http://www.childtalk.com/History/chinafamilyresearch.html

History The Past Through Tomorrow

Genealogy Research LinksCyndi's ListGenealogy.com
Ancestry.com
Familysearch.org
China Family Research

Chines Cultural Centre - San Francisco

http://www.c-c-c.org/

The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco is a major community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 to foster the understanding and appreciation of Chinese and Chinese American art, history, and culture in the United States

Taishan maps

http://www.apex.net.au/~jgk/taishan/maps.html

Administrative maps can help identify where records of a more local nature may exist, such as trial briefs and land title deeds. Tourist maps should show the major roads and identify the attractions. Those attractions like temples and cemeteries may have useful records, and certainly do have useful inscriptions. Topographical maps will show mountains, rivers, valleys, towns and villages, which can suggest market towns, routes and neighbours, all vital clues to relevant records. Historical maps may help explain life in your ancestral village by the type of streams, roads, towns and villages recorded. Be careful of their details, as they owe more to dead-reckoning by missionaries, tourists and self-serving civil servants than to accurate surveys by professional cartographers.

Hoi Ping and Toshan Village Database

http://www.c-c-c.org/villagedb/display.cgi

Village DB: About
Welcome to the Roots Village Database, a digitization of the information from the Index of Clan Names By Villages published by the American Consulate General in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Originally used to investigate immigration fraud, this data is now valuable for genealogy research.
Currently, data entry for Toisan is complete. Hoiping data entry has just started. Please be patient; this is an entirely volunteer-driven project. Eventually we will have data from four counties, and all sorts of fancy indexes. :-)

The data here comes from the Index of Clan Names By Villages. There are four books, one each for Toishan, Sunwui, Hoiping, and Chungshan. Eventually, we'll put up the introduction from those books, but for now this note should suffice:
Thanks to Him Mark Lai for wanting this to happen in the first place; to Beatrice Yu, for setting up the groundwork; and to Tony Tong, for coordinating the project in its current form.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Australia Research

National Archives of Australia and Others«

http://www.naa.gov.au/default.html

State Archives of NSW www.records.nsw.gov.au

Public Records of Victoria www.prov.vic.gov.au

Chinese Australian Historical Society that holds talks www.hermes.net.au/cahs/Another Sydney Chinese family history group is Chinese Heritage that holds talks

www.chineseheritage.org.au Golden Threads www.amol.org.au/goldenthreads

Another Sydney Chinese family history group is Chinese Heritage that holds talks www.chineseheritage.org.au

Gwa Liang Wong

This is to introduce myself and to advise you of the background of an exciting project which relates to our ancestral village of Gwa Leng in Jungseng County, China.
A book called "Zengcheng New Zealanders" was launched by the NZ Tung Jung Association, in Wellington on 5 August 2006, as part of their 80th anniversary celebrations. This book included a section on Gwa Leng but due to space being limited, only part of the story on Gwa Leng could be included. After the celebrations a team of Gwa Lengders from all over NZ who are passionate in recording the ancestry and history of the village and the families who migrated to NZ over the years, decided to form the Gwa Leng NZ Family History Group.
I have been nominated as a village co-ordinator for the Group whose ultimate aim is to produce a book on the history of Gwa Leng that will comprise a genealogical directory and include some case studies of families in New Zealand with roots in Gwa Leng. This may include your family if you wish to be involved.
We are fortunate in having in our midst Dr Edmon Wong, eminent research scientist now retired, who has in his possession a rare copy of the official Genealogical Record of Gwa Lang village. With his knowledge of Chinese, he was able to extract from it much interesting and valuable historical information which he has already presented in the chapter entitled "The Origin of Gwa Leng and the Genealogy of its Early Ancestors", in the recent TJA book. Edmon has now agreed to participate further, and will be taking a key part in producing our proposed forthcoming follow up publication.
His vision for the book, endorsed by us, is firstly to make available in it the names of the first 17 generations of GL ancestors contained in the ancestral record, in an accessible format This will serve as the core anchoring section from which to extend the genealogical record down to later generations. If present day GL families/family groups, through consultation with their older living members can individually work backwards and can search out the written Chinese names and generation ranking of their own known ancestors, and can indicate what their relationships are with other known GL families groups, then it should be possible to reconstruct from the collective data bigger and bigger family trees, and eventually link up many of them right back to the core table of the past ancestors, to over 500 years ago. In this regard we are also fortunate in having in our group several elders who have lived in the village, are fluent in the Chinese language, and can still recall from their own memory the names of the patriarchs of many other GL families, and can even provide information on how many of these families are interrelated. While their vigour and memories are still intact, we hope to record this knowledge and made it accessible in English to interested readers, and make use of it to help in bridging the present to the past.
Whilst these earlier parts of the book will largely be concerned with the Chinese past, the last and equally important part will involve participation by as many of the present day GL-NZ people as possible. It will in the main be a collation of individual family histories in English as provided by their present day descendants. In short, the envisaged book, besides being an update of the historical record, will aim to serve as a directory of GL people past and present. It will be an accessible reference for young non-Chinese speaking GL people to find their own roots, to help them to know better who they really are.
In the process of producing this book we also envisage continuing and expanding our contact with people back in the village who have already helped in providing valuable information earlier. There has apparently been a revival of interest in genealogy back in the villages in recent years, and we fully expect that our work when published will also be of great interest and use to our kinsmen back home in GL.
I would be pleased to meet with you to explain the project in more detail and discuss how we can work together to produce a publication that will be not only a reference for the future but a book to be treasured by future generations.

My contact details are as follows: gwa.liang.auck@gmail.com
各位瓜嶺鄉親,

紐西蘭東增會館八十週年紀念 慶祝會,已於 2006 年 8月 5曰在惠靈頓召開,並圓滿完成. 次日,我們 一夥瓜嶺黃氏宗親,十餘人開會討論,贊成組織一個 [瓜嶺旅 紐黃氏家族歷史研究小組] 目的是嘹解我們瓜嶺旅紐人士的由來, 歷史, 奮鬥事蹟,及發展過程,然後再將收集的質料, 用中英文編寫成書, 出版面世,以為傳承.

本人家中, 有先父 珍藏之 [瓜嶺鄉黃氏族譜]. 譜內寫下瓜嶺鄉黃氏 一世至十七世 的祖先 歷史, 年代由1130年起至1780 年止. 前幾年時, 老鄉親黃偉材與黃戊昆二位先生, 又增補了幾家近代瓜嶺人的家譜資料, 世系包含大 約由二十世至二十五世左右. 我們小組, 今打算在 新族譜內能包含 簡短的家族譜歷史, 但也希望每家的家譜都能納入, 使其成為-部完整的新族譜.

我們知道如要完成此願望,便需要大家 盡力幫忙,提供資料,或憑記憶力搜尋寫下您家族:上至 高,曾,祖,考,下至已身, 代代的中文名字,及間 略的生平事蹟,當然能追溯愈久遠愈好. 如能銜接到十七世祖先, 便最好不過了.

此事只有依靠懂得中文的長輩鄉親才能辦得到了,所以敬請您見信後,盡力幫忙,資料寫出後, 煩請寄來我如下的地址, 以便整理,編印入我們旅紐瓜嶺人士的新族譜內.

黃漢強.
31/8/06

gwa.liang.auck@gmail.com

Grafton Wall Auckland

Pork Buns - Avondale Fleamarket August 2006

Kai Luey - Tung Jung Associaltion Book Launch

Victims?

http://www.tungjung.org.nz/downloads/Victims.pdf#search=%22tungjung%20association%22

Zengcheng New Zealanders Book Launch


The book, Zengcheng New Zealanders, a History for the 80th Anniversary of the Tung Jung Association of New Zealand Inc. will also be launched at the function. Many people have contributed to this book. It will have chapters about the migration of Chinese from Zengcheng to New Zealand, the history of the Tung Jung Association since its beginning in 1926, stories about the villages in China and the families of the people who came to New Zealand all those years ago, and a specific chapter about Zengcheng women. The book will illustrate the colourful and often painful journey experienced by the early Chinese highlighting their success in becoming established and respected in the New Zealand society. This book will be of interest to families and researchers alike.

Age Old Duck Eggs


Avondale Flea Market

Father and Son