Tang Genealogy & Wuxi
TANG QUEST
In 2015, I visited the genealogy section of the Shanghai Library to try my luck and see if there might be any records relating to Zing Wei's family. I had visited China's largest library once before and to my surprise discovered that their gruff personnel were actually quite efficient and helpful. But I had not had a chance to visit the Genealogy Reading Room and had no idea what services they could offer. I entered the single room of about 30 feet by 30 feet on the second floor.
The library is a charmless, utilitarian concrete facility, but this room is human-scaled and furnished with ersatz carved dark wood furniture, as though in an effort to appeal to a clientele of older or overseas Chinese. Clashing with the too-red varnish of the tabletops are a number of black PCs. Several gray-haired souls are quietly at work. There is a single attendant about half their age and two-thirds mine.
I approach his desk armed with three proper nouns – the name of Zing Wei's father, Tang Xiqi (唐錫圻), supplied by Helen, and the names of the towns "Xizhang" (西漳) and "Shi Tang Wan" (石塘灣), mentioned in my grandmother's autobiographical letter – and explain my hopeful request. The attendant-archivist is non-committal. He spends a couple minutes at his computer, walks over to one of the public computers, calls up a document, scrolls to a page in the middle and instructs me to start looking through the pages for a familiar name, then moves off to deal with someone else.
My non-mother-tongue eyes dart randomly about the screen, overwhelmed by the page dense with characters. I am mindful of my travel companion at my side, a first-time visitor to China, who I've persuaded to give me an hour before we start sightseeing. I glance again at my notebook, trying to hold a mental image of the eight characters that are my lifeline. How long should I give myself? "We'll just wait till the guy is free again," I tell her.
Click, scan........Click, scan........Click, scan......I've made my way through about eight pages. All of a sudden I see the characters 西張, not 西漳 as written by my grandmother, but a different second character with the same pronunciation. For Chinese learners, characters that sound the same but are written differently are a minefield and regular proof of how little we know. I flag the attendant down. Is there any chance, with only a fifty percent match, this could be the town? Again the attendant is non-committal. He opens a new document, and tells me to start looking for the characters 唐錫圻.
My spirits are buoyed, but I see this document has over a hundred pages. I cast my eyes at the clock. I have hope, but do I have time? I make a promise that I won't exceed my allotted time, but wonder if I'll really be able to pull myself away if I can't get through the hundred-plus pages in the next forty minutes. Click. Click. Click… Amazingly within about 10 minutes, I spot the characters 唐錫圻. Is it possible I've found a needle in a haystack, and in a such a short amount of time? The characters stand out against a large blank area below his entry. This means he belongs to the youngest generation included and at the time of publication had no children (in any case, as a girl, my grandmother was unlikely to have been included). I swivel around to find the attendant. Does he think this could be my great grandfather? Could someone else have the same name? The third character strikes me as somewhat unusual, but the second character is the "xi" of Wuxi and seems like a plebeian choice for someone from the area...
The attendant calmly asks me the year of Tang Xiqi's birth. I estimate twenty years before my grandmother's birth year. 1880s? Xiqi's entry says he was born in the 12th year of Guangxu's reign and the genealogy was published in the 25th year of Guangxu's reign. I have a conversion table but still need some help…1899. Tang Xiqi would have been 13 when the genealogy was published, just old enough to be included. If born in 1886, then he would have been 22 when my grandmother was born! The years jibe.
This feels like a small miracle. This genealogy was likely the last of its type, given the social revolution in the years to come, and in any case my great-grandfather died around 1921. Yet his short life managed to be documented, and this document managed to make its way into the library's collections. Perhaps Wuxi's proximity to Shanghai weighed in favor of its survival, but even so, how many genealogies must there be in China for a national archive to collect?
Fortunately, my traveling companion feels she has learned something about Chinese cultural continuity and priorities, making our sixty minutes worthwhile.
I take this chance to thank the unflappable young library attendant, who presented me with a certificate for counter-donating my Huang genealogy, and to thank all the many librarians who have helped this project.
The library is a charmless, utilitarian concrete facility, but this room is human-scaled and furnished with ersatz carved dark wood furniture, as though in an effort to appeal to a clientele of older or overseas Chinese. Clashing with the too-red varnish of the tabletops are a number of black PCs. Several gray-haired souls are quietly at work. There is a single attendant about half their age and two-thirds mine.
I approach his desk armed with three proper nouns – the name of Zing Wei's father, Tang Xiqi (唐錫圻), supplied by Helen, and the names of the towns "Xizhang" (西漳) and "Shi Tang Wan" (石塘灣), mentioned in my grandmother's autobiographical letter – and explain my hopeful request. The attendant-archivist is non-committal. He spends a couple minutes at his computer, walks over to one of the public computers, calls up a document, scrolls to a page in the middle and instructs me to start looking through the pages for a familiar name, then moves off to deal with someone else.
My non-mother-tongue eyes dart randomly about the screen, overwhelmed by the page dense with characters. I am mindful of my travel companion at my side, a first-time visitor to China, who I've persuaded to give me an hour before we start sightseeing. I glance again at my notebook, trying to hold a mental image of the eight characters that are my lifeline. How long should I give myself? "We'll just wait till the guy is free again," I tell her.
Click, scan........Click, scan........Click, scan......I've made my way through about eight pages. All of a sudden I see the characters 西張, not 西漳 as written by my grandmother, but a different second character with the same pronunciation. For Chinese learners, characters that sound the same but are written differently are a minefield and regular proof of how little we know. I flag the attendant down. Is there any chance, with only a fifty percent match, this could be the town? Again the attendant is non-committal. He opens a new document, and tells me to start looking for the characters 唐錫圻.
My spirits are buoyed, but I see this document has over a hundred pages. I cast my eyes at the clock. I have hope, but do I have time? I make a promise that I won't exceed my allotted time, but wonder if I'll really be able to pull myself away if I can't get through the hundred-plus pages in the next forty minutes. Click. Click. Click… Amazingly within about 10 minutes, I spot the characters 唐錫圻. Is it possible I've found a needle in a haystack, and in a such a short amount of time? The characters stand out against a large blank area below his entry. This means he belongs to the youngest generation included and at the time of publication had no children (in any case, as a girl, my grandmother was unlikely to have been included). I swivel around to find the attendant. Does he think this could be my great grandfather? Could someone else have the same name? The third character strikes me as somewhat unusual, but the second character is the "xi" of Wuxi and seems like a plebeian choice for someone from the area...
The attendant calmly asks me the year of Tang Xiqi's birth. I estimate twenty years before my grandmother's birth year. 1880s? Xiqi's entry says he was born in the 12th year of Guangxu's reign and the genealogy was published in the 25th year of Guangxu's reign. I have a conversion table but still need some help…1899. Tang Xiqi would have been 13 when the genealogy was published, just old enough to be included. If born in 1886, then he would have been 22 when my grandmother was born! The years jibe.
This feels like a small miracle. This genealogy was likely the last of its type, given the social revolution in the years to come, and in any case my great-grandfather died around 1921. Yet his short life managed to be documented, and this document managed to make its way into the library's collections. Perhaps Wuxi's proximity to Shanghai weighed in favor of its survival, but even so, how many genealogies must there be in China for a national archive to collect?
Fortunately, my traveling companion feels she has learned something about Chinese cultural continuity and priorities, making our sixty minutes worthwhile.
I take this chance to thank the unflappable young library attendant, who presented me with a certificate for counter-donating my Huang genealogy, and to thank all the many librarians who have helped this project.
A WHIFF OF LEARNING & OF WAR
Comprising twenty-one volumes of about 140 to 150 pages each, the formally published Tang genealogy is a considerably more substantial record than the hand-copied Huang genealogy. The Jinyang Tangs (晉陽唐氏) traced their line to Jinyuan County in Shanxi Province (山西省晉源縣), to a Tang dynasty founding ancestor named Tang Jian (唐儉; courtesy name 茂約 Mao Yue), and a Ming dynasty lineal ancestor named Tang Bao (唐寶; courtesy name 維善 Wei Shan).
The sub-branch of the Tangs from Xizhang near Wuxi appear to have scholarly credentials for multiple generations, and while the genealogy only records the surnames of wives, rather than their full names (along with birth and death dates and burial information), it was clearly important to this family or in this region to also mention when a wife came from an educated family.
In short, the genealogy offers proof that, just as my grandmother delicately claimed using a conventional but seemingly accurate four-character phrase, her forbears had a whiff of learning about them.
The timing of the document also poses several points of interest and further inquiry. Published in 1899, it post-dates the 1864 end of the Taiping Civil War by thirty-five years or approximately one generation. Current estimates say that upwards of 20 to 30 million people perished in that fifteen-year conflict, making it the deadliest civil war in history, not to mention that more than half the population in affected areas, which very much included Wuxi, were displaced. The reason for widely ranging estimates is the lack of documentary evidence. Could the Tang genealogy help shed light on the vagaries of that conflict?
Like the far less detailed Huang genealogy, the Tang genealogy importantly records places of death and burial, but also considerably more personal information such as personality traits. If ages at death could be tabulated and, perhaps more significantly, burial locations pinpointed, they might shed light on the degree of disruption to such a gentry family. To what extent were lives and careers cut short and individuals displaced, and over what distances and what lengths of time? With some sixty male cousins in each of the three generations preceding Zing Wei's father, there is potentially a lot of data to work with.
Tobie Meyer-Fong's book, What Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19th Century China, focuses on the psychic trauma of the massive conflict and the subsequent decades of effort to record, recount and seek restitution for what had been suffered and lost. In keeping with her thesis, the 1899 publication of the Tang genealogy can be seen not only as a traditional means to memorialize what must have been a prominent family but as an almost desperate attempt to reassert order over what was still a devastated landscape and society. Sadly, such exertions were barely accomplished when the further unrest of the late Qing and early 20th century came along and wiped them out.
The sub-branch of the Tangs from Xizhang near Wuxi appear to have scholarly credentials for multiple generations, and while the genealogy only records the surnames of wives, rather than their full names (along with birth and death dates and burial information), it was clearly important to this family or in this region to also mention when a wife came from an educated family.
In short, the genealogy offers proof that, just as my grandmother delicately claimed using a conventional but seemingly accurate four-character phrase, her forbears had a whiff of learning about them.
The timing of the document also poses several points of interest and further inquiry. Published in 1899, it post-dates the 1864 end of the Taiping Civil War by thirty-five years or approximately one generation. Current estimates say that upwards of 20 to 30 million people perished in that fifteen-year conflict, making it the deadliest civil war in history, not to mention that more than half the population in affected areas, which very much included Wuxi, were displaced. The reason for widely ranging estimates is the lack of documentary evidence. Could the Tang genealogy help shed light on the vagaries of that conflict?
Like the far less detailed Huang genealogy, the Tang genealogy importantly records places of death and burial, but also considerably more personal information such as personality traits. If ages at death could be tabulated and, perhaps more significantly, burial locations pinpointed, they might shed light on the degree of disruption to such a gentry family. To what extent were lives and careers cut short and individuals displaced, and over what distances and what lengths of time? With some sixty male cousins in each of the three generations preceding Zing Wei's father, there is potentially a lot of data to work with.
Tobie Meyer-Fong's book, What Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19th Century China, focuses on the psychic trauma of the massive conflict and the subsequent decades of effort to record, recount and seek restitution for what had been suffered and lost. In keeping with her thesis, the 1899 publication of the Tang genealogy can be seen not only as a traditional means to memorialize what must have been a prominent family but as an almost desperate attempt to reassert order over what was still a devastated landscape and society. Sadly, such exertions were barely accomplished when the further unrest of the late Qing and early 20th century came along and wiped them out.
GENEALOGY REFERENCE INFORMATION
Genealogy of the Jinyang "Tangs", 21 Volumes (晉陽唐氏宗譜二十一卷 Jin Yang Tang Shi Zong Pu Er Shi Yi Juan)
Wuxi, Qing Dynasty, 25th Year of Guangxu (無錫清光緒25年 Qing Guang Xu 25 Nian) – i.e., published in 1899
Printed with wooden movable type (木活字本 mu huo zi ben)
Retrieval number 927106-27 (索取號 suo qu hao)
Wuxi, Qing Dynasty, 25th Year of Guangxu (無錫清光緒25年 Qing Guang Xu 25 Nian) – i.e., published in 1899
Printed with wooden movable type (木活字本 mu huo zi ben)
Retrieval number 927106-27 (索取號 suo qu hao)
- Volume 1: Page 37 mentions Jiushan Gong (九山公), founder of the Xizhang branch of the genealogy.
- Volume 8 (#927113): Page 79 mentions up to Daojian (道漸) and his brother Daoyou (道有).
- Volume 16 (#927121): Page 93 mentions Zing Wei's grandfather Ruitong (瑞同) and his brother Ruixin (瑞忻), and page 106 mentions Zing Wei's father, Xiqi (錫圻).
Deciphering the Tang genealogy below is a work in progress.
FOUNDING ANCESTOR OF THE XIZHANG LINE
The following three pages trace the Tang line, starting with 27th generation Jue (珏) of the Ming dynasty, who is considered the founding ancestor of the Xizhang line because one of his sons moved to Xizhang.
- 27th generation Jue (珏), 1467-1549
Courtesy name: Jufu (聚甫), pen name: Gengyin (耕隱)
[description]
b. 1467 (20th year of Chenghua)
d. 1549 (28th year of Jiajing), 3rd month, 16th day
Buried: Wan'an Village (萬安鄉) [more information]
Two sons: #1 Yue, #2 Jie
- 28th generation Jie (岊), 1505-1593, 2nd son after elder brother Yue (岳)
Courtesy name: Jiushan Gong (九山公), considered founding ancestor of the Xizhang branch of the Tangs
A loyal and noble nephew, rewarded with a court position
b. 1505 (1st year of Zhengde, 11th emperor of the Ming Dynasty)
d. 1593 (21st year of Wanli, 7th month, 15th day), venerable age of 88
Married a woman from the Li family
Rewarded with the honor of being buried behind the residence [?]
Five sons: #1 Biao, #2 You, #3 Gun, #4 Chan, #5 Ju - 29th generation Biao (表), 1527-1596
Courtesy name: Xijin (西津)
Honest and sincere, reserved in speech and manner
b. 1527 (6th year of Jiajing)
d. 1596 (24th year of Wanli, 2nd month, 10th day)
Married a woman from the Su family
b. 3rd year of Jiajing, 8th month, 29th day,
d. 36th year of Wanli, 10th month, 10th day, venerable age of 85
Buried together at the ancestral graves south of the Ma Family Bridge
One son: Shifang - 30th generation Shifang (士芳), 1560-1630
Courtesy name: Shijin (侍津)
b. 1560 (39th year of Jiajing, 3rd month, 5th day)
d. 1630 (3rd year of Chongzhen, 2nd month 19th day), venerable age of 67
Married a woman from the Sheng family
b. 35th year of Jiajing, 2nd month, 7th day
d. 1st year of Chongzhen, 2nd month, 20th day, venerable age of 65
Buried close to home along the new western grave path
One son: Daojian
- 31st generation Daojian (道漸), 1584-1645
b. 1584 (21st year of Wanli)
d. 1645 (7th year of Shunzhi), 2nd month, age of [68?]
Married a woman from the Peng family who died without issue
Subsequently married a woman from the Yuan family
b. 29th year of Wanli
d. 4th year of Kangxi, venerable age of 65
Buried: #992 [complex address]
Four sons: #1 Dehu, #2 Deyun, #3 Dexuan, #4 Dehuang
- 32nd generation Dehu (德瑚), an eldest or only son
Courtesy name: Zizhong (子忠)
Honest and sincere, industrious, careful, modest, frugal – the demeanor of an elder
b. 2nd year of Tianqi, 壬戌 renxu, 10th month, 9th day
d. 18th year of Kangxi, 未己 weiji, 8th month, 1st day, 3-5pm, age 58
Married to a woman of the Zhang family
b. 4th year of Tianqi, 甲子 jiazi,
d. 2nd year of Kangxi, 辛酉 xinyou, 8th month, 21st day,
Buried: 十都六圖之龍亨溝
Four sons: #1 Rengao, #Rentao, Renbo, #4 Renyi[?] - 33rd generation Renbo (仁伯), #3 of 4 sons
Courtesy name: Yinci/zi
[the lengthiest biographical details of anyone in the line?]
- 34th generation Yizhao (義照), #1 of 4 sons
- 35th generation Huai (槐), #1 of 2 sons
- 36th generation Qingyun (慶雲), #2 of 3 sons
- 37th generation Shengpei (聖培), #2 of 2 sons, one of 37 male siblings/cousins
ZING WEI'S IMMEDIATE FOREBEARS
The next two pages give the details of the the four generations preceding Zing Wei's father Xiqi – i.e., Xiqi's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great grandfather Yutai. We wonder if Zing Wei had a chance to know her grandfather, Ruitong, who if he survivied would have been in his mid-fifties when she was born.
- 38th generation Yutai (裕泰), 1789-1850
Xiqi's great-great-grandfather, who died before the Taiping Civil War got underway
#2 of 2 sons, one of 40+ male siblings/cousins (with 13 adoption/succession notes*)
Courtesy name: Bu? (步?), pen name Xilin (溪林)
Scholar of the Imperial College (太學 Taixue)
b. 1789 (已酉 yiyou, 54th year of Qianlong), 4th month, 1st day
d. 1850 (更需 gengxu, 30th year of Daoguang), 3rd month, 30th day, 62 years of age
Married second daughter of Hu Huanxing - 39th generation Shoukang (壽康), 1816-1864
Xiqi's great-grandfather, lived through the Taiping Civil War and died in conflict's final months at relatively young age
an eldest or only son, one of 60+ male siblings/cousins involved in 7 "adoptions" (see note below*)
Courtesy name: Qiufang (秋舫)
議敘縣左堂,敕贈?/賵?修職郎 [appears to have been conferred some sort of imperial post]
b. 1816 (丙子bingzi, 21st year of Jiaqing), 1st month, 3rd day
d. 1863 (癸亥 guihai, 2nd year of Tongzhi), 10th month, 4th day, 48 years of age (by traditional reckoning)
Married to woman from the Yu family from the Yang Family embankment (Yang Jia Wei), daughter of Yu Mengxiong, a classical scholar
b. 1813 (癸酉 guiyou,18th year of Jiaqing), 7th month, 7th day
d. 1864 (甲子jiazi, 3rd year of Tongzhi), 5th month, 29th day, 52 years of age
Buried together at Hui Shan, Ma An Wu (Horse Saddle Dip)… [continues] - 40th generation Shiyi (士伊), 1833-1899
Xiqi's grandfather, who lived through the Taiping Civil War and survived to see the 1899 genealogy published or nearly so
an eldest or only son, one of 60+ male siblings/cousins involved in 12 "adoptions" (see note below*)
Courtesy name: Weihou (維候)
國學生京街?翰林院待詔 [appears to have had a connection with the Hanlin Academy and qualified for, but never received?, an imperial post]
b. 1833 (癸巳guisi, 13th year of Daoguang), 12th month, 15th day, 3-5pm
d. 1899 (已亥 yihai, 25th year of Guangxu - i.e., the year the genealogy was published), 5th month, 26th day, 7-9am, 66 years of age
權葬住基漚 [had the privilege of being buried in a certain place?]
Married to surname Zhu ( formerly?) prosperous, daughter of Zhu Bingkui, a classical scholar
b. 1812 (壬申 renshen,12th year of Daoguang), 10th month, 1st day, 7-9am
d. (丁卯 dingmao, 6th year of Tongzhi), 8th month, 5th day, 11am-1pm
Two sons, #1 Ruitong, #2 … [continues]
- 41st generation Ruitong (瑞桐), 1854-? (i.e., still alive in 1899 when the genealogy was published)
Xiqi's father, who would have been born as the Taiping conflict came to the Wuxi area and was still a boy when the conflict ended
#1 of 2 sons , one of 61 male siblings/cousins involved in 14 "adoptions" (see note below*)
Courtesy name Qinzhai (琴齋)
b. 1854 (甲寅 jiayin, 4th year of Xianfeng), 6th month, 29th day, 3-5am
Married surname Dou
b. (戊午 wuwu, 8th year of Xianfeng), 1st month, 5th day, 3-5am
One son Xiqi and three daughters, 長適邑武生徐子祥 [gives some details of eldest daughter, eldest son Bofang (伯芳), names of second and third sons unknown [meaning sons of eldest daughter, or husbands of second and third daughters?]
ZING WEI'S FATHER: END OF THE LINE
The following image, reading right to left, shows a brief entry for Zing Wei's father. It straddles the fold between the two pages:
42nd generation
- Xiqi (錫圻)
- b. 1886 (丙戌bing xu, 12th year of Guangxu), 2nd month, 10th day, 5-7am.
- He was an only son, one of 18 male cousins at the time or publication, in this 42nd generation of the family.
His generation was the youngest shown in the genealogy (at least for this branch). He would have been 13 in 1899 when the genealogy was published, almost 22 when his daughter – 43rd generation Zing Wei – was born in 1908, and about 35 when he died around 1921.
*ADOPTION & SUCCESSION
It was common practice in China for nephews or other male relations to be adopted to carry on the line of an uncle with no sons.
In the Tang genealogy, two different terms 兼 (jian) and 嗣 (si) are widely used to indicate these stand-in relationships, with the adoptee's name appearing twice in the genealogy:
The exact difference between the two terms is not clear (to me). Since the character兼 signifies "simultaneity", perhaps 出兼 meant that one took on responsibilities for the adoptive uncle while maintaining ties to one own's father. In such a case, the term might be similar to the term 諡 (shi) used in the Huang genealogy to specify a posthumous adoption – |
i.e., a relationship involving only the after-death responsibilities of making offerings to the spirit of the uncle – presumably one who died young and/or unmarried – rather than a living relationship.
That would suggest that 出嗣 indicated a more decisive break with one's birth family – i.e., actually going to live as the son of the uncle during the uncle's lifetime. The terms 贅胥 (zhuixu) and 繼子 (jizi) also each appear once in the Tang genealogy, examples of yet another strategy to continue a family line: a man who marrying "out" of the family and taking the surname of his wife's family's, where presumably there were no sons. Because of the importance of carrying on the male line, this apparently was a more widespread practice than might be imagined. My deduction is that the two terms are inverses of each other with 贅胥 (zhuixu) – literally "'extra son-in-law" – indicating the marrying OUT situation, and 繼子 (jizi) indicating that someone had married INTO the Tang family. |