The Village Database: A Resource for Chinese American Genealogy Research

Chinese American genealogy sources exist in both America and China, but finding them in China can be challenging. In America, an unintended consequence of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the generation of voluminous government records that now benefit research on Chinese Americans by providing and confirming the names of people, of villages written in Chinese characters and romanized in English, and sometimes, remarkable photographs. In China, such work was performed at the village level. Meticulous village genealogy books (zupus) record the men in each village and contain family lineages for the villagers spanning hundreds to thousands of years; women’s names were not included. Many of these books are now digitized and available through the online Village Database. In this Research Files feature, Henry Tom introduces readers to the database and guides them on how to use it.

《乡村数据库：美籍华人宗谱研究资源》

在中美两国都能追溯美籍华人的宗谱渊源，但在中国寻找它并不容易。在美国，1882 年《排华法案》衍生了一个意外后果，那就是产生了大量政府档案。如今，这些档案能够提供并确认用汉字和英文罗马字书写的人名和村庄名称，有时还附带宝贵照片，有益于美籍华人研究。在中国，这些工作在村级开展。细致的村庄族谱列载了每个村庄的男子，涵盖了千百年的村民家族世系；女性的名字未包含在内。其中许多族谱均已数字化，可通过在线乡村数据库 (Village Database) 查阅。在这篇研究档案专题中，Henry Tom 向读者介绍了该数据库，指导了如何加以使用。