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.