Su family tree (26 volumes)

Could this contain the information about our ancestors???

This is where I found about the existence of a 26 volume Su genealogy:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1350928891

I hope I can contact the blogger who posted this information.

Qingyang Mountain Village 青洋山村

Qingyang Mountain Village is the Ancestral home village of the Su (Tô) family. Qingyang is located in the Puning county, Guangdong province, which is here.

Qingyang village is a village 15 km east of Puning city. The area of Qingyang contains 3316 acres of land, of which 2731 acres of arable land and 585 acres of mountain. The village is divided into 6 districts and has a total population of 13,592 inhabitants. The industrial and agricultural output value was 25 million Yuan in 2009. The main agricultural products are rice and sweet potatoes. There are 139 Communist Party members. Source: http://bbs.chaoshanren.com/thread-501117-1-1.html

Some pictures of Qingyang village (from www.panoramio.com)

           

The village seems to be inhabited mainly by "Su" people. At least there are many Su people living there. There's also a Su Ancestral Hall where the Su ancestors are being worshipped. This is an image of people in front of the Su Ancestral hall, who just held a ceremony for the Ancestors there:

Since they held a ceremony for the Su Ancestors, most likely these people are uncle's and cousins of my wife. This image was taken from a movie I found on the internet. Here you can see the complete movie with our distant relatives performing the ceremony. There are 3 movies, which I think should be displayed in this order:

The movies show the Su Ancestral Hall (movie 1), the ceremony being performed (movie 2) and people eating, drinking, talking (movie 3).

A friend of mine found another interesting blog which seems to appear a Zupu of the Su family. This could be an interesting document. Hopefully I can get in contact with the person who posted this document.

Here are the 3 photo's from the zupu:

The next step will be to get in touch with someone in the village, hopefully someone speaking English, who can look up some names (like Su Khai Zhen) in the available Zupu's...

Su Dongpo - earliest ancestor of the Tô family?

The last few weeks Phi's aunt, Cô Út Câu, gave us some very interesting information. She told us about a generation poem of the Tô / Su family, which Phi's great grandfather Tô Nươn Ngươn / Su Kai Zhen brought from China to Vietnam. Her son sent us a transcribed version of it. This is the poem.

The poem is supposed to be written by Su Shi, better known as Su Dongpo. If that's true, then my wife must be a descendant of that man.

Su Dongpo was an important historical figure who lived from 1037 to 1101. He "was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher,pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman of the Song Dynasty, and one of the major poets of the Song era."

Here are 2 pictures of Su Dongpo and, to the right a document, written by Su Dongpo himself.

Extract from Wikipedia about Su Dongpo:

Su Shi was born in Meishan, near Mount Emei in what is now Sichuan province. His brother Su Zhe (蘇轍) and his father Su Xun (蘇洵) were both famous literati. Su married at age 17. Su and his younger brother had an extremely close relationship and in 1057, when Su was 19, he and his brother both passed the (highest-level) civil service examinations to attain the degree of jinshi, a prerequisite for high government office.

Beginning in 1060 and throughout the following twenty years, Su held a variety of government positions throughout China; most notably in Hangzhou, where he was responsible for constructing a pedestrian causeway across the West Lake that still bears his name: suti (蘇堤, Su causeway).

Su Shi was often at odds with a political faction headed by Wang Anshi. Su Shi once wrote a poem criticizing Wang Anshi's reforms. The dominance of the reformist faction at court allowed the New Policy Group greater ability to have Su Shi exiled for political crimes.

During this period, he began Buddhist meditation. With help from a friend, Su built a small residence on a parcel of land in 1081. Su Shi lived at a farm called Dongpo ('Eastern Slope'), from which he took his literary pseudonym.

After a long period of political exile, Su received a pardon in 1100 and was posted to Chengdu. However, he died in Changzhou, Jiangsu province after his period of exile and while he was en route to his new assignment in the year 110. Su Shi was 64 years old.


Family

Su Shi had two wives and a concubine. His first wife was Wang Fu (王弗, 1039–1065), an astute, quiet lady from Sichuan who married him at the age of sixteen, when Su was nineteen. Wang Fu died in 1065, on the second day of the fifth Chinese lunar month (Gregorian calendar June 14), after bearing him Su Mai (蘇邁).

In 1068, two years after Wang Fu's death, Su married Wang Runzhi (王闰之, 1048–93), Fu's paternal younger cousin and his junior by eleven years. Wang Runzhi spent the next 15 years accompanying Su through his ups and downs in officialdom and political exile.

Wang Runzhi died in 1093, aged forty-six, after bearing Su two sons, Su Dai (蘇迨) and Su Guo (蘇過).

Su's concubine Wang Zhaoyun (王朝雲, 1062–1095) was his handmaiden who was a former Qiantang singing artiste. Su redeemed Wang when she was twelve years old and she later became his concubine, teaching herself to read though she was formerly illiterate. Zhaoyun was probably the most famous of Su's companions. Zhaoyun remained a faithful companion to Su after Runzhi's death, but died of illness on August 13, 1095 (绍圣三年七月五日) at Huizhou.[11] Zhaoyun bore Su a son Su Dun (蘇遁) on November 15, 1083, who died in his infancy. After Zhaoyun's death, Su never married again.

Recently I found information on a Chinese website about a 490 year old Zupu of Su Dongpo discovered in China in the Jianxi province, south of Wuhan:

Figures of Su Shi (right) and his son Su Zhe (left) in the pedigree

A 490-year-old pedigree of Su Family was recently found at Guantian Village, Shidu Town, Wuning County, Jiangxi Province. It was compiled in the 1st year of Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1522). The pedigree is about 50cm long and 30cm wide. It was printed on rough paper and there was dragon pattern on the top of every page. The pedigree covers figures of Su Qin, Su Wu, Su Shi and Su Zhe as well as postscript and preface written by celebrities such as Wen Tianxiang and Fang Xiaoru.

The next step would be to go to China and find search the Zupu's, I suppose...

Family Lam

My mother-in-law was born in Bac Lieu, Vietnam. She was the daughter of Quang Vinh Lâm (1896 - 1966) and Lý Thì Vốn (1900 - 1972). Both are buried in Bac Lieu.

They lived in a tiny village, called Long Thanh, near Bac Lieu. This is where my mother-in-law was born.

We visited the location where the house was located. The house is long gone and the area is now someone's garden. In the front you can still see the foundation of the Lâm - Lý family house. As a child my mother-in-law played on the stones, visible on this picture:

Quang Vinh Lâm was the biological son of mr. Lâm Văn Cẩm and mrs. Huỳnh Thị Mai. Until recently their grave didn't have a gravestone, but a few years ago my mother-in-law met with a distant relative in Bac Lieu who appointed the location of her biological grandparents. My mother-in-law then arranged the gravestone to be made. Now the person who pointed out this grave has passed away. Had she not met my mother-in-law, their grave would have been an anonymous grave.

But mr. Quang Vinh Lâm did not grow up with his biological parents. According to the story his parents were poor and they gave him away for adoption. It could also be that his biological parents had died when Quang Vinh Lâm was still a child. Anyway, mr. Quang Vinh Lâm was adopted at an early age by mr. Lin Li Sheng ̣(Vietnamese name not yet known) and mrs. Đường Thị Qửu.

Mrs. Đường Thị Qửu is buried in the garden of a great-grandson of this couple, who showed us her grave. 

Her husband was buried a short while away in a Chinese grave:

Translation of the Chinese characters:

一九三五年重修 rebuilt 1935

祖考禮勝林公墓 grave of ancestor Lin li Sheng

男孫並奕世全奉 presented by grandson yi si chun

The man who showed us these 2 graves also had a photo of the couple in his house:

Both the biological father as the adoption father of mr. Quang Vinh Lâm was called Lâm ̣(Lin in Chinese), so probably they were related to each other as well. Unfortunately the gravestone of mr. Lin Li Sheng doesn't indicate a home village in China, so the origin of the Lâm family is still unknown.

Lý Thì Vốn was the daughter of mr. Lý Minh Hiến. This was a very wealthy family. I have dozens of pages of documents from this family, including land purchases and a will. I will write more about this later, but mr. Quang Vinh Lâm and Lý Thì Vốn inherited 84 hectares and 26 centiares (approximately 208 acres) of rice fields:

To be continued...

Start of my research

Over the last years I've been doing significant research of my own ancestors. But last year, during a vacation in Vietnam, I decided to do some research on the ancestors of my wife, Tô Kim Phỉ. I want to share all information found with anyone interested. That's why I'll be blogging in English, even though that's not my native language. So this is the start of the quest for my wives Chinese ancestors.

The quest starts in august 2012 when we went on vacation to Vietnam. We visited lots of relatives in Soc Trang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau (Mekong Delta area). My wives parents where both born in Bac Lieu. The first result was when we visited a cousin of my wives grandmother (from fathers side). He created a significant ancestry book (Gia Phả): descendants of mr. Trương Văn Hòa and mrs. Dương Từ Mẫn. I will publish more information about this later.

In Hộ Phòng we visited an older sister of my mother-in-law. She took us to a distant cousin who showed us dozens of pages of documents from the French colonial time about my mother-in-law's grand parents (mr. Lý), including his will. Here's a picture from that, but as mentioned, I have lots of pages still to investigate. I will write about that later.

In Bac Lieu we also visited several gravesides where ancestors where born. This is a gravestone of mr. Su Kai Zhen, whose Vietnamese name was Tô Nương Quơn:

Translation of the text:

Main line, middle

祖孝開振蘇公墓 grave of ancestor, mister Su Kai Zhen

Right

妣淑德林氏 mother, Shu De, née Lin *

Left

妣隆日吳氏 mother, Long Ri, née wu *

Far left

民國十二年重修 rebuilt 12th year of the republic, 1923

* Note: the stone was made by the children, so they refer to the wives of mr. Su as "mother".

Mr. Su Kai Zhen was married twice. His first wife, Lin Shu De (Lâm Thị Xià) died and he remarried mrs. Wu Long Ri (Ngô Thị Minh). These are the parents of Tô Hửu Đường, my wives grandfather.

The year of mr. Su Kai Zhen's death is not yet clear to me. According to my wives aunt mr. Su Kai Zhen died when Tô Hửu Đường was approximately 7 years old. Mr. Tô Hửu Đường was born in 1909, which means that mr. Su Kai Zhen died in 1916. That could mean the stone itself was (re)built in 1923. Is that the year his second wife died? This is still an unanswered question to me.

Unfortunately the gravestone of mr. Su Kai Zhen doesn't mention the ancestral homevillage. Luckily, a short distance away, there are more graves of the Tô family. There are these two graves:

According to the story, mr. Su Kai Zhen came to Vietnam with 2 nephews. These are most likely 2 brothers (as they have the same generation name), so could these be the 2 nephews? I cannot be sure yet, although they are certainly related. Interestingly, the left stone does refer to an ancestral home village in China. The ancestral home town of the Tô / Su family!

Translation of the 2 graves:

Left picture:

祖

考成山蘇公 ancestor mister Su Cheng Shan

妣秀花劉氏 mother Xin Hua, née Liu *

* Note: the stone was made by the children, so they refer to the wives of mr. Su as "mother".

Right picture:

蘇成大之墓 grave of Su Cheng Dai

The stone on the left picture also refers to a village:

中國 廣東省 揭陽市 普寧市 青洋山村

China, Guangdong, Jieyang, Puning, Qingyangshan village

Location on Google maps: -> here

For the translation of the Chinese characters I got help from the Chinese Genealogy forum.

Now the main question is: Is there more information available about the Su family in China?

To be continued.