How far back can you trace your family tree? With the Wongs’ family tree or genealogy book, you can find the names of your Gom Benn ancestors going back hundreds of years. I found the names of my ancestors going back to the 1600s.
We are the “big belly” Wongs – because the Chinese character for Wong or Huang 黃 (which means yellow) resembles a portly person. We are not Wangs – 王 (Wong/Wang) who are the “three-stroke Wong” (for the three horizontal strokes) or the “King” Wong (due to its meaning).
Like other villages in Guangdong’s Pearl River delta, Gom Benn is a single surname village – everyone is a Wong. As explained by anthropologist Laura Ng in her 2021 dissertation about Gom Benn, we are members of a male-dominated lineage, which enables us to share corporately owned paddy fields and homes through our male ancestors. Gom Benn men marry women from other villages, outside the Wong clan. Thus, women are not lineage members, and not included in the genealogy book.
Genealogy Book
In China historically, villagers construct and maintain an ancestral hall to honor their ancestors. In these halls are kept the genealogy books with the names of ancestors and their descendants, and a little history.
I have a copy of 2006 edition of the Taishan Wongs genealogy book, which includes our Gom Benn Village ancestors. Our Wongs belong to the Wong Yinlong (隱龍) lineage, or “hidden dragon.” We are part of the larger Wong clan that goes back to the mythical emperor Huang Di who supposedly reigned around 2600 BC.
According to the Taishan genealogy book or zupu (族谱), Yinlong was the first of our ancestors to move to Tung Hau (Dongkou 洞口) Village in Shuibu Town, Taishan County, in the year 1253 AD. In Laura Ng’s dissertation, she notes that during the Ming Dynasty, Yinlong’s descendants spread out from Tung Hau to four other nearby villages. In 1732 AD, an ancestral hall was constructed in Tung Hau village to honor Yinlong; the hall was first renovated in 1862 and underwent another complete restoration in 2013.
Source: Laura Ng’s Dissertation
Gom Benn’s Beginning
The founding ancestors of the Gom Benn village cluster can be traced to three descendants of Yinlong: Huang Fushao, Huang Chaozuo, and Huang Yingzuo. They moved from Tung Hau village to the Gom Benn area around 1411-1424 AD. Fushao is a sixth-generation descendant of Yinlong and established Chin San village. Chaozuo and Yingzuo were two brothers whose father was Fuzheng; they are the seventh-generation descendants of Yinlong and founded the villages of Ngan Gok (formerly a part of Sun Ha), and Sun Ha, respectively.
Ancestral halls were built in these villages to honor these ancestors. Over time, the descendants of these three lineages spread out to other villages in Gom Benn or moved to a nearby village cluster called Sam Se (Sanshe 三社) while others established villages in various towns in Taishan/Toisan County.
Names and Names
According to Linda Huang’s friend Peter Lau, there are about 200,000 Wongs in Toisan, one-fifth of Toisan’s population. The Yinlong genealogy book lists the names of the ancestors of many of these Wongs. The book is about 1,000 pages long, at least 50 of which cover the Gom Benn branches. The names of the Gom Benn Wongs follow a generational poem.
Linda Huang found the Chinese names under generation 23 with the names of her father (Gan Voy) and uncle (Gan Poy). The book was missing her grandfather’s name (Sam Wong), possibly because he was adopted. Her grandfather should have been part of generation 23, and her father part generation 24. Each generation is typically 30 years.
Translating Names
Linda’s edition shows family trees. My edition was presented by the Taishan City Huangshi Juzheng Enterprise Board of Directors in August 2006 to the Gom Benn Village Association, according to an embossed inscription on the cover. That’s according to my Google Translate app. My edition lists only a person’s Chinese name and then the father and son of each man listed. The names are grouped by generations and their village.
So what good is it to only know a name? Although I don’t read Chinese, I can use Google Translate to translate the Chinese characters into Pinyin, which is easier for me to read. I can match up names and go from my father to my grandfather and see the name of my uncle, and his son. I can find my grandfather’s father. And by looking up the listing for my great-grandfather I can find his father and brothers.
That’s how I tracked my ancestors back to the 1600s. Eventually I can track more distant cousins.
So What?
You might ask: Why? Why is our family history important?
The Wongs’ genealogy book is an honoring of our ancestors, a remembrance. Originally the book provided a foundation for land ownership. Today it helps us to understand a little more about ourselves. The more we know about our ancestors and our family history – the more we know about ourselves.
Note: I’m using my copy of the Wongs’ genealogy book to support research into our Gom Benn family histories. I’m hesitant to share the book because it is so invaluable and fragile. Still, I’ll happily pass on the book to someone in our Gom Benn family who reads Chinese and who will carry on this research. Contact me at: scholarship@gombenn.org.
