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...