Tracing the Ancestors: Our 30-Day Guide to Finding Kin in China
My father-in-law has always spoken about his Chinese roots with immense pride, but his ancestral village in Shantou 汕头 (known historically as Swatow) felt like a distant, romantic dream. This city is a global hub of the Chinese diaspora, with over 2.16 million overseas Chinese tracing their roots back here—a huge number, especially prominent in countries like Thailand and Cambodia.
Recognizing his age and his deep desire for connection, my family and I set a firm goal: plan a trip to that very village next year. I initially braced myself for months of slow, complex research, maybe even requiring a lonely solo scouting mission.
However, thanks to strategically deploying the right digital tools, the process accelerated far faster than I ever imagined. From my first Facebook post to a living relative on a WeChat video call, the core connection was established in just one single month!
Here is the exact four-step journey we took to pinpoint our family’s exact location and find living kin.
Step 1: Secure the Clues (The Foundation)
Before starting any trip planning or online searching, the first step is the most critical: secure your vital historical clues.
I was incredibly lucky that I had previously taken clear photos of the two tombstones belonging to his late grandparents and parents in Thailand. These photos are the single most valuable piece of evidence you can possess, as they contain the necessary names, dates, and, most importantly, the exact village address. Without this specific address, the search is significantly harder. Dig up any old letters, documents, or photos that might contain these precious characters.
Step 2: The Digital Toolkit: From Skepticism to Breakthrough
With the tombstone photos in hand, I began my online search, initially feeling skeptical of the resources available to a non-Chinese-literate researcher. My biggest fear was ending up in the wrong village due to a simple mistranslation.
I quickly identified two promising resources:
- The Chinese Ancestry Research Facebook Group
- The My China Roots Website
My skepticism was immediately put at ease after reading a Channel News Asia article (linked below) that detailed a successful family search, confirming the power and legitimacy of these communities for overcoming language barriers and geographical distance.
Pinpointing the Exact Location
My initial translation of the tombstone address was a bit off, due to an incorrect Google translation. I decided to post the detailed tombstone information in the Chinese Ancestry Research Facebook Group. The response was incredibly fast—my post was approved and received helpful comments in just over seven hours!
The community helped solve two critical issues: pinpointing the exact geographical location and clarifying the village name’s evolution over time. This confirmation immediately reduced the ambiguity and solidified the exact “map pin” location for our trip, correcting my own detective work by just 2km!
Step 3: The Human Connection and Unexpected Kin
The most exciting development came from an unexpected second lead. A kind Chinese Samaritan based in Thailand, who commented on the post, messaged me separately. He took the powerful initiative to cross-post our details on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小红书), which led directly to the precise village location pin.
This outreach quickly generated a crucial lead inside China. This local Chinese contact actively followed up on the information and successfully connected us to a 75-year-old man who claimed to be my father-in-law’s first cousin!
This led to a flurry of messages, transitioning quickly from Facebook Messenger to WeChat. As someone who is Chinese illiterate, this required constant translation, but thankfully, WeChat’s built-in translation feature made reading the messages much easier.
Using my limited Mandarin, I arranged a video call between the uncle, my father-in-law, my husband, and my sister-in-law. The uncle was certain of the relationship, stating that the names on the tombstone photos were enough proof, despite our immediate family lacking the zupu (族谱—the clan genealogy book), which may or may not still exist today.
A small, sweet cultural note: The uncle gently corrected me on a traditional custom, explaining that as a woman, I should simply refer to my husband’s father as “my father” (since only my husband has an in-law relationship), and I’ve since been making efforts to refer to him as “gung gung (公公).”
Step 4: Shifting to a Guided Reconnection
This success has entirely shifted our travel strategy.
While I can navigate the logistics of travel, having a guaranteed contact and address upon arrival will make the trip infinitely more meaningful and less stressful for my father-in-law. We were also able to plan the trip better with advice from the uncle — we now know the best time to visit is during key festivals when the majority of family members gather back in the ancestral village.
We are proceeding with the trip planning, cautiously aware that this link, while highly promising, still needs in-person validation. As we joked, if it turns out to be not the right connection, we’ll simply make new friends in China!
I will certainly update this post once we have more details about the tracing results and our final travel itinerary next year!
Key Resources Used
- Chinese Ancestry Research Facebook Group: Highly recommended for quick village identification and kin tracing, especially for non-literate researchers.
- My China Roots Website: Excellent resource for initial research and understanding the genealogy process.
- CNA Article for Legitimacy: This article confirmed the effectiveness of these online resources: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/focus-father-and-daughters-journey-find-their-long-lost-relatives-china-4545641
