Description
THE 2021 EDITION IS NOW OUT OF STOCK. CHECK BACK FOR THE NEW AND EXPANDED 2022 EDITION COMING SOON.
You will be interested in this guide if you are new to Chinese genealogy and aren’t sure where and how to start, or if you’ve been doing your own family history for years and would like to see some more basics, or if you’re a keen family genealogist who’d like something to help you explain Chinese genealogy to other people.
This guide is for you if you don’t speak or read Chinese but would still like to find more about your roots and where you come from.
The guide starts out with my “Top 15 tips for the beginning genealogist”: the things I wished I’d known when I started out, that would have saved me hundreds of hours of frustration and confusion in everything from understanding census records to why there were so many name variations.
Then I go through the process step by step, breaking down a complex branch of genealogy into the basics. I review the best translation tools for Mandarin and Cantonese, and I give you a deep list of resources to help you find, translate, and understand not only your surname, but also the historic areas called the Four Counties (Sze Yup) and the Three Counties (Sam Yup). I provide a glossary of useful terms and concepts.
Who knew you’d need to know so much about Chinese words in English? It’s very confusing. I explain the differences among Pinyin and Wade-Giles formats (for Mandarin Chinese), and Cantonese words in English (called “Jyutping”), while also giving the characters in Chinese.
This book was inspired by my blogs and focuses on the history of Chinese migrants who left China by the tens of thousands from 1850-1949 to make their way in the New World, be it the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or other places, to become what is now known as the Overseas Chinese.
This book is dedicated to every would be genealogist who would like to find their Chinese ancestry in the New World.
My friend Linda Yip is a genius and she knows many things about Chinese genealogy. She’s taught me a lot about Chinese genealogy… and she just put out a book, and it’s really good… there’s so much stuff in this book you guys…and I don’t think this book has existed until now…I can’t say enough about it… it’s a fantastic resource. It was so needed. – Carly Lane Morgan, Family Tree Notebooks
NOTE: This is a digital download. No products will be shipped. Look for the orange DOWNLOAD button after payment. It’s strongly recommended you download the files to a computer, as computers have a readily findable folder called “Downloads.” It is not recommended to download the file to a smartphone – the book is not formatted to be read on a small screen, and phones will instantly lose your file. You are warned! 🙂 Kidding. If you lose your file, check Shopping FAQs, and if you still can’t find it, let me know.
