Seminar: Discovering Your Chinese Roots

1.3 billion people – the population of China.  2 million people – the estimated population of people of Chinese descent living here in the United States.  What do they have in common?  Their roots.

Family history research is becoming a significant hobby for many; a rewarding one, albeit not without its challenges.  Researching Chinese ancestry presents many unique challenges, especially when most of the records are not here in this country, or yet on-line.

           It used to be that anyone interested in researching their roots had to locate, get access to and then spend countless hours visiting libraries or pouring over microfilm or microfiche.  The films and records were often hard to read and special skills were generally required to understand the penmanship used at the time the records were recorded.  They often didn’t write characters the same way then as we do now.

  But that was then because the age of the Internet is changing all of this.  Census, birth, death, marriage, military and a host of other records are being digitally photographed and made available for free over the Internet at a breathtaking pace.  Access to these documents is now almost instantaneous.  While that, all by itself is significant, it is not the end of the story.  To make these digital documents discoverable and to eliminate the need to understand historical penmanship practices, thousands of volunteers from around the world have been indexing this material to make it searchable by merely typing in the characters.  Chinese characters included.  Family history research is quickly moving to the age where anyone can do it, even from the comfort of their own home.

  To help take some of the mystery out of this process, the Dublin Mandarin branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be hosting a seminar for the Chinese community on researching and discovering your Chinese roots.  The featured speaker will be Grace Chan who has worked as a Chinese family history specialist for eleven years at the world’s largest family history library, located in Salt Lake City, Utah.  “I would like the Chinese people to know that it is truly possible to trace their roots even though the journey may be challenging,” Grace commented.  “The unique nature of the Chinese tradition of keeping family genealogy causes people think about their ancestors in daily life.  I will present various case studies to show and teach how to use the existing tools to start their journey,” she added.   The seminar will be held Saturday, October 8, at 10:30am at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 8203 Village Parkway in Dublin. 

The seminar will be conducted in Mandarin with English translation.  It is free and open to the general public.