OS: MX Linux
Gramps 5.2.3
I’m new to Gramps and genealogy, thinking in creating one for my family, stuck right now due to the following limitations:
- my parents (both deceased) are from China and I was born in Taiwan, therefore had very limited information about my ancestors.
- China, in the beginning of 20th century was not peaceful and a lot of documents no existent or missing during internal/external war (so I have only my great-grand father’s name and surname for my great-grand mother and the city/village they lived).
Can someone tell me where is the best place to start to build my ancestry tree? I’ve found Familysearch.org & Wikitree, both seems to me are oriented to western ancestry search, is there a one dedicated for Chinese (preferably open source or has a lot of Chinese users?)
I don’t know much about it, but a search told me that familysearch has a big collection of what is called “japu”…
CoPilot tells me that the collection has approx. 70000 preserved japu-titles and approx. 60 millions images with Chinese genealogy related sources…
In addition, FS usually have some great landing pages for every country where you can find even more resources and articles.
CoPilot also found these web pages that can have some resources for you:
Zupu.cn
Jiapu.cn
mychinaroots.com
You might also find some more resources on chinesefamilyhistory.org.
IT might also be that you can have use of a bibliography tool like Zotero and a note taking tool like Obsidian, both easy to use and great extra tools for research when you start to get more information… as an example, in Obsidian you can easily link object and people with simple wiki-links in both structured (MD-tables) and unstructured text.
Another great note-taking and writers’ tool that also is open source and free is Zettlr, something similar to Obsidian, but a little more focused on longform writing…
Personally, I wish I had a tool like Obsidian or Zettlr when I started my research 30 years or so ago…
PS. as I wrote I can’t anything about it, I just did a few searches to see if I could find some resources for you…
Good luck with your research… and I think you will find Gramps as a good tool for registring what you find, just remember to register all your sources and citations with internet adresses (permanent addresses to sources where it is given).
2 Likes
@StoltHD thanks so much for this tip, I’ll do further search/reading on your suggestions.
Response from cross-posting to a PM with Kristy Love, a Gramps user on Facebook.
Sorry for the delay in responding. I recommend that the person familiarise themselves with Chinese genealogy research methodology first.
My colleagues created a Chinese Australian Family History Research Guide which, while specific to Victoria, Australia, is a useful read as it covers the basic principles of researching Chinese family history.
Chinese Australian Family History Research Guide – CAFHOV
The Family Search wiki and Cyndi’s List are useful places to learn about the availability of records:
Cheers,
Kristy
