Page 3 - Gan's Family History
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Introduction
T without a memory. 1. the origins of the Surname,
o live without history is akin to
living
2. Dates of Birth & Death
Without history, you, your
4. the migration patterns of the
family, your tribe, or even your 3. Places in one's Family Tree,
nation would seem to be without clan,
roots, without a past, and the 5. the family lineage,
present would seem to have no 6. the ancestral biography,
foundation and little meaning. 7. the story of the locality, etc.
A philosopher once asserted: FAMILY HISTORY on the other hand
“People who forget about the past is the finding out and recording of
are condemned to repeat it.” what happened between those dates.
HISTORY provides us a window to The written Jiapu contains entries
the past with tales of success and of about the migrations of the people
efforts that had failed and of and social evolution. It tracks the
aspirations that weren't realised. growth of the clan members by
recording in detail their political,
military and academic achievements.
It also eulogizes the clan's ancestors
and encourages the future
CHINESE GENEALOGY
generation to do worthy causes to
I A Jiapu usually begins with the
maintain the good name of the clan.
n the history of the Chinese
people, there are three important
progenitor that first settled or
1
elements that are significant –
1. China's history, moved to a place and started his
2. the local gazette and family there, and should end with the
contemporary generation that draws
3. a Clan's genealogy.
Amongst these three elements, up the genealogy. The intermediate
ancestors are to be enumerated in
genealogy has the longest history between.
and is the most influential. The progenitor's sons and
descendents compose the first six
JIAPU (Zupu) (translated as generations and are tabulated on one
GENEALOGY record), means form. The progenitor's first-borne son
“showing family descent”. It is the and subsequent first-borne
recording of a clan's history and
lineage, documenting grandsons are listed vertically
1 a biologically related ancestor: a
progenitor of the species.
