Hi! I hope you all could assist. I found a match to a distant ancestor in the FS tree database. The
Here is the link to the tree I found. I am assuming there is a zupu in Family Search's database that would have the full info? https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/9K1B-X1J
Thanks!!!
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Hi, the link you provided show a family tree but not the individual person. Can you share the link that is just the person's personal page?
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Hi Lina, Thank you for reaching out! This is the link to the ancestor in question. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9K1B-X1J. His descendants are charted much more extensively than I have been able to find anywhere else.
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The earlier changes in 2012 is probably the migration from the old nFS system to today FSFamilyTree database. The 2018, I don't know. It could be support team.
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So how can i find out where this information came from? Is there a way to tell?
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If you are asking what evidence was used to create this Person, and since this Person has no Sources, there is no way to know from FS FT. So you will have to find records (like Jiapu) that may have this Person listed.
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Hi Jeremy, I saw the person originally entered the data was 陳美芳5678145，shown in the Gender, and Birth columns. You may open the personal data page of 陳永吉 and click on the name of 陳美芳 （the blue color name after 建立者：） . Then send her a message asking her about the source.
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I did a bit of scanning and this line goes back to about 1000bc. There are various Sources, like on this one https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/L6LM-GL8 and various other contributors as well as FS. But I noticed quite a few error along the path back (where parents are born after the children).
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This looks like a contributor from nFS days (at least more than 8 years ago).If so those autogenerated contact names had no way to contact the actual user.
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When it happened that the "parents were born after the children" is because different people entered the information for the same person. Every contributor would put the information for hundreds of generations. The old Chinese genealogy records did not have the ancestors' birth dates. People (contributors) would use "estimation" to mark the ancestors' birth dates. Some people use 25 years for one generation estimation; other people use 30 years as a measurement. Imaging it only takes a few generations to have a big difference. I don't know how to resolve this problem.
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Joe,
There are definitely errors indeed as I already found an ancestor that was mismatched with his brother. That is why I am interested to see the source material. I was thinking it came from a text uploaded to FS somewhere, but maybe i'm wrong?
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Judy,
Thanks for that tip. I can try and reach out to the person.
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Hi Jeremy: if you check 陳永吉's FS page, look at the right hand side under latest changes, you can see merge happened in 2018, click on show all, you will be able to see detail, you can always unmerge them (there were 2 ID's) if you feel they are different persons, if just the birth year difference, you can always change the year by click on edit. 陳美芳 did some editing in 2012, but you can go to family tree and click on find and enter the name, or check in images under search, you might find some family pedigree book to do the verification.
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Hi Wendi,
I tried looking up Yong Ji in the searches, but came up empty. It didnt seem like there were too many family tree books in the images search either.
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Hi Jeremy,
Since 陳永吉 was from Taisan, Guangdong, maybe his name pronounced differently in Cantonese, also, he might have different name(s) during his adulthood,when I have a chance, I will help searching his name.
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Hi Jeremy:
I checked images for Taisan, Guangdong with Chen as last name, come up 3 陳氏族譜. Do you know how to read Chinese?
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Hi Jeremy,
My name is Tony King. My maternal grandfather is a 陳 (陈 simplified) from 臺山縣, 廣東省 (台山县, 广东省) Taishan County, Guangdong Province. I have done a fair amount of research on the 陳 line in Guangdong and particularly in Taishan. Many already shared some good comments and advice. Let me give you a bit more.
As I understand it, you are searching for further information on 陳永吉 (ID: 9K1B-X1J), either in the Family Search Chinese collection of zupu or from the source of the information in Family Tree. Before you proceed, you should make sure your ancestor is the same ancestor you have identified here in Family Tree. You can corroborate by comparing other close relatives. The father of this 陳永吉 is 陳文質 Chen Wenzhi and his grandfather is 陳師亮 Chen Shiliang. If this matches the data in your line, then you have identified the right ancestor and are on the right track. Checking my own zupu, I have discovered a 陳永吉 who descends from my great-great grandfather. This person's father is 陳榮石 Chen Rongshi and his grandfather is 陳淮光 Chen Huaiguang. If this data matches your ancestor, then we are closely related and I can share my own zupu with you. Having common names is one of the hazards of doing Chinese genealogy; you just have to be careful to verify you information.
Assuming you have indeed identified you ancestor in the tree, let's continue. You made the statement that you assume there is a zupu in the Family Search database because this information is in the Family Tree. Actually, you cannot make this assumption. This would be true only if the person who entered the data, or another person with the same zupu, submitted a copy to Family Search with the copyright permission to post the zupu online. We encourage people to do this, but this is a separate action than entering data into Family Tree. From my initial perusal of the Family Search database, I do not find any zupu that contains this branch of the 陳 line, coming from the locality within Taishan I know this branch to be from. I will explain in a bit the specifics I know of this branch.
Your best bet to get the specific information you seek is to contact the person who entered the data. As pointed out by Judy Hsu, this person is 陳美芳5678145. I find this by going to the 陳永吉 person page and clicking on Detail View under Vitals. This will show you who made changes to the various pieces of vital data. In this case, it shows Family Search made the latest change to the name, but the gender, birth and death dates all show the changes (likely the initial entry) was 陳美芳5678145. Click on that link and it will allow you to send a message to this person. She will be able to see she has a message the next time she logs into Family Search.
Okay, let me give you a few more specifics on the 陳 line or clan. Joemartel mentions this line extends back to 1000 BC. It actually extends back to the Yellow Emperor (黄帝) who lived in 2700 BC. Many 陳 zupus show this linkage, although as some have pointed out, discrepancies among zupus exist, especially those going back to ancient times. Now, focusing on 陳永吉,
if you look at his tree six generations prior, you will see he descends from an ancestor by the name of 陳輝 Chen Hui, aka 陳鳳台 Chen Fengtai. This ancestor is well known to the Chens of Guangdong, as he is regarded as the first Chen who came to Guangdong Province. He had seven sons. The vast majority of Chens from Guangdong descend from one of these sons and it is a key data point to be able to identify from which son one descends. I happen to descend from the first son, 陳謨 Chen Mo. 陳永吉 descends from the third son, 陳英 Chen Ying. Therefore, if this 陳永吉 is your ancestor, you should be interested in obtaining any zupu that documents the 陳英 Chen Ying branch of the clan.
I have in my possession a 陳 zupu that was obtained at the Chen ancestral hall in the ancient town of Zhujixiang 珠玑古巷, the town where most Chinese first settled who were immigrating from northern China to Guangdong Province after traversing the Meiguan Pass. Zhujixiang now is the home to ancestral halls representing more than 200 surnames. This 陳 zupu is a revision published by the Chen clan only a few years ago. This zupu does not give extensive information on 陳英 Chen Ying, but it does have a half a dozen pages of narrative on the branch. I have scanned these pages into a PDF file and tried to attach it here, but the size exceeds the limit for attachments. If you send me your email address, I will send this document to you.
Here are a few things this narrative mentions. One piece of info shows a discrepancy from the Family Tree data. This zupu shows that the grandfather of 陳永吉, 陳師亮 Chen Shiliang, is the son of the first son of 陳法 Chen Fa. The first son is 陳金山 Chen Jinshan. The data in Family Tree shows he is the son of 陳萬山 Chen Wanshan, the second son of 陳法 Chen Fa. This is a discrepancy that needs some research to resolve.
The narrative also gives the names (surnames) of spouses, which is missing from the Family Tree data:
陳英 -- 李氏
陳法 -- 劉氏
陳金山 -- 吾氏, 葉氏, 黄氏
陳師亮 -- 吾氏
陳文質 -- 李氏
陳永吉 -- 容氏
The narrative says that 陳師亮 relocated to the 都斛 Duhu Township (southeast corner of Taishan county). His grandsons took up residences in three nearby villages, 東坑 Dong Keng, 白石 Bai Shi, and 豊江 Feng Jiang. It specifically mentions that 陳永吉 lived in 東坑村 but that eight generations later, his descendants moved to 豊江村. Whether or not you are able to obtain the zupu you are seeking from the Family Tree source, 陳美芳, this is a significant area that you may want to visit and search out other 陳 zupu.
I hope this helps.
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Hi Wendy,
I saw those 3 entries, and they were not from my area of Hoisan unfortunately, but thanks for looking!
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Hi Tony,
I believe we may have bet before briefly as I had attended the genealogy seminar in NY many years back and was at the conference in Salt Lake City in 2019. But pleasure to meet you again!
The ancestor Yong Ji in the tree is indeed the ancestor I am looking for however, I did see an error going a few generations back that I was able to confirm with online sources that charted the generations prior to 陳永吉. #4 below is in the FS tree as 陳禺山 but might be 陳金山 as I have linked below. These profiles in geni.com along with the Chin ancestors going all the way back to Huang Di was charted by Philip Tan, who is active on the siyigenealogy forum and has done extensive Chin clan research as well. This lineage ends up in 豐江 the neighboring village to my village 東坑/東洲.
5. Chén Fǎ 陳法
6. Chén Yīng 陳英
It specifically states in the zupu Philip referenced, that this particular Yong Ji is the first ancestor to migrate to Tung Hang 東坑 (my village) and Fung Gong 豐江. It seems Yong ji and his ancestors populated the three villages you mention and aptly called the area 三村鄉
It see you have found the discrepancy as well, in the ancestor that I have pointed out above. So, that gives an additional confirmation on my sources accuracy. Potentially seeing the source material of 陳美芳5678145 could very well shed some additional light.
I did get a little confused on how to find that person who entered this data so thanks for the further clarification. I will try and sent them a message. This seems to be the best avenue so far,
Yes, Chen Ying is the branch I descend from. That is very interesting to hear the narrative told in the Zhujixiang zupu. Looking for family tree books wasn’t on the top of my mind when I went back to visit my villages in 2018. It is a big regret of mine that I didn’t think to ask in some of my villages or at Zhujixiang when I was there. Now that I am a lot more knowledgeable about these books, it will be a focal point of mine the next time I can try to go back after the pandemic lets up.
I know that I can get this information easily once I am able to go back and revisit the village, but because of the research nerd I am, I like to see how much info I can gather stateside while I don’t have the opportunity to be there in person. I already traced two of my lines back to Huangdi and a third back to the first ancestor to move to the south. (The knowledgeable Henry Tom says that Lee clan lineages prior to the Guangdong progenitor are highly contested in many circles…)
So, for this Chin clan, I have everything from Huang Di down, I am just missing the 13 or so generations in between. As you can see in the spreadsheet I charted out below.
Thanks again for your immense detail and sharing your vast wealth of knowledge on the Chin clan!
P.S. I also appreciate your mention of the rare traditional form of 台,臺. You don’t see it very often now a days except in these older published zupu 😊
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anytime.
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Hi Jeremy,
It is good to get re-acquainted. I can see you have a great deal of progress on your research. It is very impressive!
You are a descendant of Chen Ying, but more specifically, you are from the Chen Yongji branch. I would imagine that the zupus from the 三村鄉/都斛鎭 area will show him as the number one generation ancestor (始祖). Once you are able to get back to your village or the surrounding area, I believe the chances would be good that you will find a zupu that will give you the generations you are missing. Of course, currently none of us are able to visit China. Hopefully, things will return to a more normal situation in the near future that will allow us to travel again.
In the meantime, you are doing the right thing. If you happen to run into any Chens from Guangdong, find out which son of Chen Fengtai they descend. If you find any Chen Ying descendants, it is worth seeing if they have a zupu. If you find anyone who is descendant from Chen Yongji, then you really need to latch onto that person. Hopefully 陳美芳 will respond to you, because she certainly falls into that category.
Good luck, Tony
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Thanks again Tony! You can email that the document you have to me at jeremynormanchin@gmail.com. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone! I appreciate all the help!
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