Family : Genealogy Book of a Family

My cousin Yew Ping as a young girl was most observant of human nature, events in social life and at the same time very dutiful. That was the reason why my great grandmother loved her. She was always by my great grandmother's side and was never out of  her sight in the Hua Hong Rice and ice Factory, Pulau Kerto.

One of her deepest impressions of my great grandfather was the fact that he would write at his desk ever so often,using the Chinese calligraphy brush.

One of the writing he did was updating the family genealogy book.

The Chinese family genealogy book is very important to any family. Those who could not read and write would even engage a teacher or scholar to write it and subsequently, every additional child born would be added to the page. Updating the genealogy book was a big problem if the patriarch could not read and write.

The genealogy would begin from perhaps even four  or five generations before if the names could be remembered. The most  important chapter of the book would be the origin of the family.

The Sibu writers' team led by Wong Meng Lei gave me the opportunity to visit my uncles and cousins in Wun Chieh, near Kin Sar, the place of origin of my Great Grandfather, Tiong King Kee, and my Grandfather Tiong Kung Ping. In the photo, the team looked at the original genealogy book written by my great great grandfather Tiong Kek Jeh, which recorded his sons and their offspring, one of them being my Great GRandfather who migrated to Sarawak.

My great grand father had three sons, Tiong Kung Ping and Tiong Kung Eng with one who passed away at age 5 and one daughter Tiong Yuk Ging, all recorded in the big book. However, my grandfather was recorded as having two sons (Tiong Poh King aka Chang Ta Kang and Tiong Siu King) because the mainland branch and the Sarawak branch of the family lost touch completely after the Second World War.

I am the only young generation member to visit Wun Chieh, although GRandmother Siew visited in 1972.

Wong Meng Leh helped us add the names of the other sons of Tiong Kung Ping to the big book. How ever one day my Wun Chieh cousins will receive a copy of the Tiong Clan genealogy published in Sibu. I will see to it that they will get the latest one, when it is ready. But on the other hand, with better communication now, my cousins in Wun Chieh would also be connected to other relatives in Sibu.

Looking at my great great grandfather's hand written genealogy book kept in Wun Chien, Minqing.

The big genealogy book is hand written. Today, new technology makes it easier to draw a family tree

And now in the 21st century, my immediate Tiong family has a new way of drawing the family tree, designed and published in the English language, by my cousins.