ANCESTRAL VILLAGE
REPORT FOR CHEN YIN FOO

(Red signifies the Cantonese pronounciation for the Chinese characters.)
(Green signifies the Mandarin pronounciation for the Chinese characters.)

On March 25 2003, our TAISHAN.COM staff went on a field trip to research Chen Yin Foo's ancestral village. The name of his ancestral village is (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun) which is located in the Sanhe town of Taishan.  This is indicated in the map below.According to Mr. Chen Yin Foo, his great-grandfather name is (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da).  The purpose of this trip is to find information about this village and to find if there are any people living in the village that might be directly related to (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da).

The (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun) consists of 3 sub-villages.  Photo 1 shows the main subvillage.  It is a poor village and has no entrance gates except a road leading to it.  Photo 2 shows another subvillage which exists further inside past the fields of the first one.  Photo 3 shows another subvillage which exists on the other side of the road.

Most of the residents from this village are farmers.   Photo 4 shows a farmer using a cow to cultivate the soil.  Photo 5 shows a close-up view of such a cow. There are about 70 households in this village.  The people here have electricity and telephone services.  However, they don't have self-running faucet water as the villages get their water from a well as shown in Photo 6.


Photo 1



Photo 2



Photo 3



Photo 4



Photo 5



Photo 6


The village has a ancestral temple or (Chi Tong, Ci Tang) used for commemorating the forefather of this village.  The name of this forefather is (Chan Kiu Soh, Chen Qiao Suo).  This temple is shown in Photo 7 and Photo 8.  He is the ninth generation from the first Chen ancestor.  Adjacent to this temple is another temple for another ancestor who is a descendant of (Chan Kiu Soh, Chen Qiao Suo).   This ancestor name is (Chan Cheung Jik, Chen Chang Zhi) and the temple is shown in Photo 9.   (Chan Cheung Jik, Chen Chang Zhi) is the 17th generation from the first Chen ancestor.  

We have asked the people in this village to see if they know (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da).  None of the people that we interviewed knew him.  However, a villager has a ancestral genealogy book written by (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui) as shown in Photo 10.  If we are to locate (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da), we believe this might be the best place to look for any related records of this person.  However, the villager has only one copy and he suggested that we contact the author of this book directly to see if we can get a copy.


Photo 7



Photo 8



Photo 9



Photo 10


On April 11, 2003, we went to (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui) office which is located in Taicheng town.  As we know, he is also the editor of a magazine here known as the (Wing Chuen Yuet Hon, Ying Chuan Yue Kan) which is a monthly magazine for the Chin Association here in Taishan.   (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui said it is not possible to locate (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da) in the book because there would be no such name.  The book only documents after-marriage names which is usually different from the birth name.  Such a convention of using two names is commonly used by Chinese people in the old days.

Based on the middle character of the after-marriage name, one can tell from which generation the person is from.  For the (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun), the characters go in the following order:

13th generation (Sing, sheng)
14th generation (man, wen)
15th generation (maan, wan)
16th generation (sai, shi)
17th generation (cheung, chang)
18th generation (ying, ying)
19th generation (chiu, chao)
20th generation (sui, rui)
21st generation (gwok, guo)
22nd generation (cheung, xiang)
23rd generation (dak, de)
24th generation (yip, ye)
25th generation (gwong, guang)
26th generation (chin, qian)
27th generation (yuen, yuan)
28th generation (juen, zun)
29th generation (faat, fa)
30th generation (wing, yong)
31nd generation (yin, yan)
32nd generation (cheung, zhang)

Thus, one can tell that (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui) is from the 25th generation and (Chan Cheung Jik, Chen Chang Zhi) is from the 17th generation as shown.  However, there is no (Leung, Liang) character which indicates that (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da) might not be from the (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun) village or it is only a birth name.  Chen Yin Foo has told us that his grandfather ( (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da) son) name is Chen Lu Sing.  This also doesn't match with the names shown.

If (Chan Leung Daat, Chen Liang Da) is a birth name, (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui) suggests that we should go back to (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun) and ask the elderly people in each of the sub-villages to see if they know of such a person.   (Chan Gwong Wai, Chen Guang Hui)said that (Na Dong Chuen, Na Dong Cun)actually has 6 subvillages.  The names of these subvillages are as follows: