Who are we? Who were our ancestors?
Thanks to genealogist Chi Tung 董小琪 ( a Gom Benn in-law), and others, we now have a pretty good answer. She has created for us a library of family trees going back to the founding family of Gom Benn, the descendants of Wong Yin Long 黄隐龙.
We are those descendants, and we can share with you information about your branch of the Gom Benn family tree. Stick with me to learn how.
(Note: Attached to this article are three images of our founding ancestors, and then the two main branches. Click on the images to see a larger version. We have to apologize that we couldn’t upload even larger, clearer images. Contact us if you’d like to see the larger files.)
Our History
First, a little background. Huang/Wong/黄 is one of the oldest family names in China, going back more than 140 generations or roughly 4,700 years. It wasn’t until approximately 1175 AD that a 111th generation Wong, JuZheng 黄居正 (1125-1213 AD), moved to Toishan 台山.
Five generations later, in 1252, Wong Yin Long 黄隐龙 (1223-1311) moved to DongKou洞口, an area next to Gom Benn Village. Yin Long (Chart 1) is our 1st generation ancestor.
Then 150 years later, in the early 1400s, Wong Yin Long’s descendants established what became Gom Benn Village. It was YinLong’s 6th generation descendants that settled in Gom Benn: FuShou孚受, and his brother FuZheng孚政’s two sons YingZuo英佐 and ChaoZuo朝佐 (YinLong’s 7th generation descendants).
Charts 2 and 3
Most of our Gom Benn ancestors descended from ChaoZuo and his second wife, Ye Shee — and in particular their two great-great grandsons (YinLong’s 11th generation): Wong WenChong 黄文充 (1500-?) (Chart 2) and Wong DeChong 黄徳充 (1503-1546) (Chart 3).
At the bottom of Charts 2 and 3 are listed some of the family trees in our library. The charts were prepared by Brian Wong 黄国 for the 2025 Lunar New Year Banquet.
For the sake of our privacy, we won’t be posting to our website the more detailed family trees with information about the most recent generations, those still alive. We have about 16 family trees, and most are incomplete. For some families, we have no information, or next to none. So the research continues.
Families are encouraged to contact us at scholarship@gombenn.org to help, or to see if we have information on your family. Chi welcomes questions sent directly to her email: hchitung@yahoo.com.