How big is the base of Chinese descendants here on Wikitree?

+34 votes
1.3k views
I'm interested in knowing.. How many wikitreers are either interested or are related to Chinese ancestors?  I have seen little action in the Asian category since it was created, and virtually none in regards to China.  How could we change this, and really expand wikitree to those who have Chinese ancestry? I understand Wikitree is limited, however with the base that we currently have, I believe there is real potential for us to dig into Asian ancestry sometime in the near future..

A site-wide challenge to trace back Chinese surnames is one suggestion.

Thanks and have a blessed rest of your day!

(P.S. Please note my inexperience with this site, so I may be missing things. Apologies if that’s so.)
WikiTree profile: Space:Asia_Project
in The Tree House by Aaron Moore G2G6 Mach 1 (11.8k points)
If the traditional family genealogies (jiapu) can be found they would be a goldmine; many still exist in the ancestral villages, some in libraries (check out the Family Search catalog), but an untold number were destroyed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

I had a friend who was fortunate enough to get photographs of the one from her ancestral village. Unfortunately, not knowing Chinese, she could not read it. This is further complicated by the fact that the language is different from what is currently taught in China, so even finding people who can read them is hard. My friend often lamented that the Elders were becoming fewer every day.

Tracing female lines is especially difficult. In my limited experience (with a man who came to California during the California Gold Rush), when you get back just a small number of generations, the women become rather anonymous, most often being referred to as “women of the X clan.” I was never able to determine his wife’s real name.
Of course, and that was one concern of mine because Mao’s destruction of Chinese culture has really made it difficult. Perhaps I’ve been very fortunate that my family has obtained the jiapu and have gotten it translated into English. As I said in a comment below, we could at least as a whole attempt to identify the Chinese-American immigrants/where they came from/one or two generations back/ and if possible a jiapu for various surnames. Many villages in China still retain their culture and many surnames can be traced to villages across the mainland. Through a distant cousin, I was able to find the village that my great great grandfather immigrated from. As for his wife.. I have no idea. All I know is that she was born in California and her parents are Chinese immigrants.

I’m sure if we try our best, we can certainly be a great help in identifying where their family came from (what region) and the rest is history.

My surname (formerly moy) comes from a man named wing ting, who comes from a man beheaded during the Shang dynasty, and he himself is descended from the Shang kings. I don’t know every individual.. but it was by researching the surnames themselves that I was able to find the patriarch.
Also would like to mention that there are hundreds of languages within China, and many of them are indigenous. So yes, languages can be a huge issue.
I am  relatively new to WikiTree and still setting up my profile.  I am half-Taiwanese and have wondered the best way to display the character for my surname on WikiTree.  Characters really are the defining identification which is why you so often see Chinese people quickly tracing out a character on the palm of their hand while in conversation.  Thank you in advance for any suggestions!
Hi Betsy. Can you just insert Chinese characters directly into profiles? I'm trying a simple example on G2G here and now: 人 .

The problem may be that this will not display correctly on all browsers. To get around that, you may need to use an image of the character.

 Chinese-American immigrants/where they came from/one or two generations back/

 by Aaron Moore

.

Chinese didn't only emigrate to the United States.  It is wrong to narrow things thusly.

There are Australian studies covering the Amoy Chinese in particular; and Chinese immigrants in general.

You're right, and I'm aware of that. I thought about that in my other comment yet forgot to make note there are obviously Chinese immigrants in other countries... I am putting together some sources now and it includes links to help research Australian/New Zealand Chinese immigrants.
Thanks for that idea, Jim.  For now, I have just put the character for my last name in my introduction at the top of my profile when I mention that I'm half-Taiwanese.  A simple copy and paste did the trick.

13 Answers

+11 votes
 
Best answer

Sorry, I have posted on WikiTree, but my deepest public postings are on FamilySearch, since they make a big thing about putting Asian names in Asian order, and allow for both western and Asian names for the same person. ButI did put some of my source documents (scan of jaipu pages) on wikitree before this was allowed on FamilySearch, e.g. https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/23831_32654_20237_27663_26063_35676-2. My male direct line according to the village genealogy traces to the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. FamilySearch apparently connects further to the Yellow Emperor. My mother's father's line is a Moy with indications back to Moy Wing Ting. My mother's mother's line is Ng, but I should change it to  as well, since people born in China should be given their birth names. And I haven't put up my wife's ancestry here, as I have done elsewhere. Her father's line goes back to the migration to Guangdong, and her mother's line goes back to the Yellow Emperor.

by Ron Eng Young G2G1 (1.0k points)
selected by Ricky Ng-Adam
+10 votes

Aaron, I supposedly have ancestors going back to the beginning of the Han Dynasty......Do I follow? laugh or lead? crying  

by John Thompson G2G6 Pilot (346k points)
Haha, that all depends on your determination. That’s really cool though.  I supposedly have ancestors going back to the Shang dynasty kings. Direct paternal line.

Aaron,  Just got back with a 'hostage', Kastamonites, about halfway to the Han Dynasty.......your turn......over to you. smiley

That's pretty cool, is it accurate?
+27 votes
Wikitree is interested in creating the biggest and best-sourced one-world tree.  Considering that China is the most populous country in the world, we are interested!  The problem, of course, is that the majority of users are American and those who are not are mostly European.  I have seen some extended Chinese and Japanese lineages posted here, so I know it is possible.  The collaborative aspect of this goal is hobbled simply by language and cultural differences.  In other words, we'd like to help, but the ability of most of us to do so is limited.  It would be AWESOME if Chinese citizens and native speakers contributed more.  I assume this is possible, but I don't even know if people in China can view and contribute to Wikitree.  In general, the Wiki-format is flexible enough to accommodate Chinese characters and naming systems--probably more than other one-world trees.  Make it so!
by Michael Schell G2G6 Mach 4 (48.9k points)
Regardless of descent, doing a challenge of some sort could incentivize others to try. Many translation services exist for a reason, and though not perfect, could at least help connect Chinese-Americans with one or two generations in China. Through distant cousins of my family, I was able to trace my Chinese lineage back to the 1500’s! So, it is entirely possible if we try, even if we don’t know the language. I certainly don’t know any Chinese, and neither did the cousins.
I'd say one of the most useful things one could add are links to Chinese sources, if they exist and are online.  Very often, knowing how to access the sources is the limiting factor. I have Swedish ancestors.  The person who smashed my brick wall was a native Swede, who knew how to access and read the sources. Do such sources exist online for China?  If they do, then simply creating a freespace page that collates them would be a major contribution.
I’ve used several Chinese forums in the past, and at least for my family there is an association for Americans of that surname. (Moy)

The reason I was able to trace it back to  the 1500’s was because of a jiapu.(Chinese family tree)

I will certainly look into links and such and maybe put something together.
+9 votes

Aaron,  Here is the daughter, Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa-1, our 28th great grandmother.  From memory this may be the closest I can get to a 'Link to Antiquity' and on to the 'Han Dynasty'.......Anyone?

by John Thompson G2G6 Pilot (346k points)
edited by John Thompson
+14 votes
I suspect that one day, if it hasn't already happened, an entrepreneur in China will develop a Chinese-language equivalent to WikiTree, and that will capture the Chinese-language market.  WikiTree can handle Chinese script, but it's structure is essentially American.

The most obvious roadblock to Chinese or any East Asian participation is the basic building block "Last Name at Birth" in which "Last Name" is an Americanism for "surname."  But of course in East Asia, the surname comes first.  I'm profile manager for Mao Zedung's profile and it requires incredible contortions to get his name to display in even a pretense of the proper order!
by Jack Day G2G6 Pilot (457k points)
I generally agree with Jack. I would love to see more Asian genealogy on WikiTree. I have Taiwanese family. But in the end, we will never be an ideal host for Chinese collaboration. Even if our technology could somehow be culturally neutral, our community communicates with each other in English. We need a common language to be one community.
Given the difficulty to have more than a handful of French people to actively contribute to WikiTree, good luck with Chinese indeed. As others have pointed, there is no essential technical roadblock, even language is not one. The reaction of many French I've tried to attract here (family, more or less remote cousins, etc) since two years now is, more or less explicitely, that they don't feel home.
Many systems now have an in-built translate function (though there not perfect), has one been investigated for wikitree?
Many systems now have an in-built translate function (though translate is never perfect), has one been investigated for wikitree?
+9 votes
by Greg Slade G2G6 Pilot (669k points)
+9 votes

I don't have Chinese ancestors but I have lived there for a number of years. I recently added the profile of Sun Yat Sen and some of his family members. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Deming-1280 (born November 12, 1866, Xiangshan [now Zhongshan], Guangdong province, China—died March 12, 1925, Beijing) He was leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party and known as the father of modern China. Influential in overthrowing the Qing (Manchu) dynasty (1911/12), he served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China (1911–12)

by Patrick Holland G2G6 Mach 4 (44.2k points)
Awesome, What a great addition! Thank you for doing this, Patrick!
+10 votes

Chinese characters can be entered on WikiTree - see Robert Tung

by Jay Wickham G2G6 (7.5k points)

Yes.  I was given a Chinese name as a boy when our family was in China, and the characters are posted in the datafield of my profile.  I started to write, "just click on it to see" but I realize as a living person, not everything in my data field is seeable.  I have this: 戴文光 posted in the line "other nicknames."

laugh Glad you noticed - I would have just clicked!

If I ever get any spare time, I would probably put some profiles of well known Taiji masters and teachers. 

I think the current structure of WikiTree would be fine, though perhaps getting the traditional characters correct, rather than the simplified ones may be a struggle.

 

+12 votes
I was also wondering about this point: where are all my Chinese genealogy friends? My speciality is Chinese+Canadian, with a focus on tracing the recent to the distant. I'm not seeing a place to put the Chinese characters for names (and trust me when I say it took me a lot of hard work just to be able to recognize them, never mind type them). As you likely know, in Chinese genealogy, the Chinese name is not just important: it is everything.
by Linda Yip G2G1 (1.8k points)
Hi Linda,

I heard your interview on Research Like a Pro and it was so exciting to me to hear someone talk about researching Chinese ancestry.  I couldn't agree more that the name is everything.  I'm still relatively new to WikiTree and only really started gaining momentum over the last 5 months.  I have gotten around this issue on my Taiwanese profiles by including characters in the bio.  As an example, Ko-35 is my grandfather.  Imperfect, but it gets the job done.
Betsy, my sincere apologies for my slow response. In my own defence, I run a number of endeavours and several dozen projects, and as WikiTree was the last one to be added, it's the first one to be missed!

Thank you for your very kind comments regarding my interview on RLP. I have to say that Diana and Nicole made it easy.

Chinese genealogy is very challenging for many, many reasons, yet it is doable even if you feel you're ten steps behind the starting gate in terms of language, culture, and records. Personally, I started my website Past-Presence.com as my own personal lookup service for links I'd collected, and it grew from there. I built the site because there didn't seem to be a good one-stop-shop for Canadian Chinese genealogy. Today, there are more and better sites, thank goodness, and I rely on them continually. I'd like to see a great collection for the USA, for England, for Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong - everywhere the Chinese diaspora went.
Hello Linda--A nice surprise to see your comment.  I bookmarked your blog and look forward to exploring it.  Since you specialize in Canadian Chinese genealogy, you might be  acquainted with George Leslie Mackay  who was born in Zorra but spent his career as a missionary in Taiwan.  He has a WikiTree profile (Mackay-3406) which I discovered was orphaned.  I adopted it and will try to spruce up the bio.  Mackay married a Taiwanese woman and had one son and two daughters.  One of his daughters married the first cousin of my great-grandfather, so there were close ties between the families.  I studied Mandarin in college and recently started reviewing on my own.  Next week I'll start an online Mandarin class and I hope that will be beneficial in my genealogy research.  Glad to have you on WikiTree!
Hi Betsy, congratulations on learning Mandarin and best wishes on your success.

I did not know about Mr. Mackay - thank you for sharing his story. Not being literate in Chinese, I focus on documents in English, which is restrictive but not as restrictive as you'd imagine thanks to the high bureaucratic focus on Chinese immigrants for the period 1882-1943 (USA) and 1885-1947 (Canada).

Very nice to meet you, and glad to see another Chinese genealogist!

Chinese immigration records Central District (In Canada)

https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c13421/54

I see the link but is there a question?
Linda, no theres' no question, from your post I thought you might appreciate the link to these records.  I happened to stumble on them while I was researching in Archives, and I saw your post about the same time.  (multi-tasking) I have a tendency to drop in links on g2g to archival records, when and where there may be a need for them.  I was searching in wikitree for where to put them, and couldn't find a project, but this post came up.
It’s very kind of you to share that link here. This is a smattering of random certificates at Library and Archives Canada (LAC).

LAC / Heritage Canadiana have relatively few early Chinese Immigration certificates available to the public. Surprising because the government expended considerable resources for decades issuing, monitoring, replacing, and updating certificates. I have counted Yip Sang had six different types of the dozens issued. They are sometimes called “head tax certificates” but that’s a misnomer as not all were fee-based but all Chinese in Canada during the period had them.

I’m working on several related projects and honoured to be assisting with the coming Paper Trail exhibition which will coincide with the opening of the new permanent home of the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver on 1 July 2023. A goal of the exhibition is to amass an archive of these lost certificates for future researchers. Stay tuned because it will be amazing.
Wow, this is awesome!  Good luck to you & all you are trying to gather and accomplish for the exhibition.  I spend a lot of time in the Archives (LAC/BAC, BAnQ & others in CAN), so if I come across any others I will be sure to send them your way thru links.  I hope you find others to help you work with you.  My time is so limited these days on wikitree, the most I can do is drop in links as I find them, since I can't commit to steady amounts of time.  (caring for elderly parents).  

Anyway best wishes and much success to you Linda
That's very kind of you. I also have a collection, gleaned from years of finding bits around the internet. I haven't updated this list in a while but here you are: https://past-presence.com/chinese-genealogy-resources/.
+6 votes
Just one idea for the naming of women who are identified by X clan, we have the same problem with indigeneous women in the geographies I work.  Those projects have decided that the Tribe name is used, when known.  so we have Marie Mi'kmaq instead of Marie Unknown.  Good luck in this endeavor, it seems very worthy.
by Cindy Cooper G2G6 Pilot (324k points)
+10 votes
Perhaps in the next connect-a-thon you could pull together a team of people would would feel comfortable creating Asian profiles and work on adding profiles to families that are already in wikitree.
by Paula Dea G2G6 Mach 8 (88.7k points)
+7 votes

Hi, Aaron! Thought you and others may be interested that we have a profile in the WikiTree Challenge for 2023, working on researching the ancestry of Sam Ching, the first documented businessman and resident of Chinese origin in Toronto: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ching-405

Alan Boyce and I started collaborating on a space page for China
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:China

From there you'll see a link to a new space page where we've started listing sources:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-China

And one where members can start collaborating on guidelines for name fields:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Chinese_Name_Field_Guidelines

Let me know if you'd like to be added to the page, we could certainly use all the help available!

by Azure Robinson G2G6 Pilot (540k points)
Hi, Azure -- what a delight to see some activity on the Asia side of the world!  

I see the two biggest issues that need to be resolved for WikiTree to support Chinese ancestry are these:

1.  We already have an edit page where we actually enter data, and a display page where the data we have entered is displayed.  I'm not an IT person, but it seems like a small change to create an option where the surname, aka LNAB, can  be placed first on the display page.  I note that Chinese living and working in the US have mostly given in to convention and place their family names last, but for Chinese in China, that would be artificial.  The first leader of PRC is Mao Ze-dung, not Ze-dung Mao.  

2.  We need to figure out how to address non-Roman script.  The WikiTree convention is to "use their spellings, not ours."  Having Chinese profiles in Chinese script is very authentic, but inaccessible to those like me who are illiterate in Chinese.  So how do we balance authenticity and accessibility?  I don't have an answer to that, but we do need to work on solving the problem.
+5 votes
I would be interested in us expanding this category/database especially for asian ancestors who lived in and/or migrated through the Caribbean. 99% of my ancestors are based in the US, but even still. Having WT be a source for that one branch would be great. Most of us are not 100% of anything.
by Yvonne Gammell G2G6 Mach 1 (16.9k points)

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