Chinese Genealogy 101
Coffee Chat
The Chinese Genealogy 101 Coffee Chat is held on the second Wednesday of most months at 10:00AM via ZOOM. Check the Events Calendar to confirm dates and times.
NOTES: The time will not change regardless of Daylight Savings Time - please adjust accordingly. Eastern time is three hours ahead of Pacific.
TOPICS: Will be announced ahead of time, or could be a more casual conversation.
RECORDINGS: Will depend on the subject. Coffee chats are meant for the group to share stories and not everyone is comfortable sharing knowing they are being recorded.
LAST MINUTE CHANGES: I'll try to keep these to a minimum but you know, life does love messing with a schedule!
The facilitator, Linda Yip, is a member of the BCGS and the Ancestry Advisory Board of Canadian Genealogists, and resides in Saskatchewan. Please contact her directly at hello@past-presence.com to receive a ZOOM invite. ZOOM has turned out to be a great way for our members that live at a distance to be involved with the society and to meet fellow members.
The cemeteries of New Westminster, BC, from the BC Penitentiary to Woodlands, and the ones under the high school
On the weekend, I had the pleasure of engaging in a conversation about cemeteries with a group of friendly folk in the Facebook Group Canadian Genealogy. (You know you’re a genealogist when…) We had a conversation about the “old Chinese cemetery” in New Westminster (New West) that is now located under New West High School.
I grew up in Burnaby / New West. I have spent dissolute years smoking illicit cigarettes near that high school, heard the stories, and yet I’ve always been fuzzy on the exact details of which cemetery was where. Here’s a map of the Burnaby / New Westminster area…(For the full story please follow the link below.)
All Chinese wives are called Shee, Shi or Sze
I have four great grandmothers with the same name: Shee. If you’re the descendent of a Chinese family, you will also have female relatives named Shee, Shi, or Shih. You may also notice that in the 1900s, every Chinese family has women named Shee. You’ll see passenger lists, censuses, and other official documents where all the women are named Shee. Here’s the character.
氏
As you may know, I don’t speak Chinese, so it’s taken me a very long time to realize that Shee is not a name, but a title. It signifies a family name, clan name or surname. It means from the family of, the same way English uses the French word née (born). For example, if your family name is Lee, and your great grandmother’s family name was Wong, her name would be:
Lee Wong Shee. Let me break that down for you: the most important part of her identity, her married name, is first: Lee.
The second part of her identity, her family name, is second: Wong.
The third part signifies her married status: Shee.
To me, this naming convention encapsulates the traditional Chinese attitude toward women: a woman’s significance only as a part of a family collective. She does not have, and does not need, a first name of her own.
—Written by Linda Yip, Facilitator of Chinese Genealogy 101
Immigration and geography play a hugely important role in Chinese ancestry. For various reasons, governments have expended considerable resources keeping track of Chinese immigration and emigration. In the USA, each port of arrival or departure kept records on the Chinese specifically. Let me say this again: if your Canadian Chinese ancestor passed a border, there are records to search on both sides of that border.
Think: border crossings, Chinese Immigration certificates, port arrivals, ships lists and alien immigration files. We Canadians living along the 49th parallel are so used to spending a day in the USA we can forget that it is an international border crossing. Chinese ancestry genealogy can be so hard – don’t miss out on all the places you can look.
Important Websites
Chinese-Canadian Genealogy at the Vancouver Public Library
Chinese Genealogy at FamilySearch
Chinese Genealogy: Resources for Canada and the USA