This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: SUNG.......China Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iRC.2ACE/357 Message Board Post: SUNG YAM, my grandfather, died in 1936 at the age of 90. Said that he came from QUEMOY. We believe he probably had another wife & family before he came out to Malaya, as it was called then. I would like to make contact with them, if possible.

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Chartrand/Olive Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/iRC.2ACE/356 Message Board Post: Doug Chartrand-My great grandmother's maiden name was Chartrand. Malvina Chartrand. She had my grandmother, Elvera and married Anthony Joseph Olive. They were rom Canada and immigrated through Detroit into U.S. Could we b related?

hi list Is anyone researching the HOY surname ? I have a GEORGE HOY b.1825 Thanks Wendy (NZ)

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iRC.2ACE/355 Message Board Post: I am looking for anything on James D. Webb and Julia Elizabeth Symonette. James and Julia married in the early 1870's probably in New Providence,Bahamas. Joan,

Hi Everybody I am new to the list. I am trying to find out how our ancestor Ah Foo (George) came to Australia. Information I have on him is very limited, he was born about 1850-1851 in Panti, China, according to his Death Cert. He was a Market Gardener and died at Parramatta. Jennie Rediger///////////---

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iRC.2ACE/350.2 Message Board Post: Two other spelling of the surname are: Liong & Leung.

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/iRC.2ACE/294.1 Message Board Post: Hi Louis. I'm a Shum and my parents came from Canton as well. Email me and we can see if we're related somehow.

** High Priority ** ** Reply Requested When Convenient ** Harry Woo/Seu-don Woo >>> corablueyes@hotmail.com 08/15/01 08:34PM >>> This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Steben Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/iRC.2ACE/208.287 Message Board Post: And what is your grandfathers name?

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iRC.2ACE/245.1.2.1.1 Message Board Post: Mandarin

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Steben Classification: Queries Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/iRC.2ACE/208.287 Message Board Post: And what is your grandfathers name?

Hello Tina, I was searching for Watson ancestors when I saw your name. My maiden name was 'Tina Louise Watson'! Tina (from Okehampton, Devon)

What dialect is your father?

Sorry about the spam. Spam sent directly to the mailing list is generally filtered out before it gets to you, but the latest offending message was posted to the China genealogy newsgroup. There is no effective way to stop those messages yet, unfortunately. I've deleted the offending message from the board, but it will unfortunately live forever in the CHINA-L and CHINA-D archives. Oh well. . . Later, Dave (the admin) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ David M. Lawrence | Home: (804) 559-9786 9272-G Hanover Crossing Drive | Fax: (804) 559-9787 Mechanicsville, VA 23116 | Email: dave@fuzzo.com USA | http: http://fuzzo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo "No trespassing 4/17 of a haiku" -- Richard Brautigan

I am desperately trying to find my father's family. His father, James Eng, and mother, Sallie Phillips, would be from China. My father's birth certificate indicates that his father is from Sum Ning, China. They lived in Fairfield, CN in 1942 and may have migrated during the war. If you have any information regarding the Eng family, please contact me directly at aengperez@hotmail.com. Thank you !!!

I am desperately trying to find my father's family. His father, James Eng, and mother, Sallie Phillips, would be from China. My father's birth certificate indicates that his father is from Sum Ning, China. They lived in Fairfield, CN in 1942 and may have migrated during the war. If you have any information regarding the Eng family, please contact me directly at aengperez@hotmail.com. Thank you !!!

I am desperately trying to find my father's family. His father, James Eng, and mother, Sallie Phillips, would be from China. My father's birth certificate indicates that his father is from Sum Ning, China. They lived in Fairfield, CN in 1942 and may have migrated during the war. If you have any information regarding the Eng family, please contact me directly at aengperez@hotmail.com. Thank you !!!

Good morning, I was interested on reading your message to note the name of Captain Glendinning. I have a mysterious ancestor by the name of John Daniel(s). On his children's birth certificate and his death certificate it states he was born in China about 1827. His wife's was noted to be born in Germany about 1831 and her name was Johanna/Sarah Glennier. On the birth certificate for the children it is stated John and Johanna married in Queensland on 23rd December 1859 although there appears not to be any record for this. Her name has sometimes been spelt Glendenning or Glendinning rather than Glennier. I do not know if his parents were Chinese or if he just happened to be born in China. Family rumour is that he was a full blood Chinese and changed his name when he came to Australia but I don't know how much of that is true. At the time of their deaths within three days of each other from pneumonia they were both working on a station called Strathane near Leyburn in Queensland, he as a shepherd and she as a cook on the death certificates. I would be grateful for any pointers in the right direction for this couple. I would like to be able to find where and when each landed in Australia and where they came from. Lee in Australia At 16:56 09/08/2001, jgk@rosella.apana.org.au wrote: >** You may want to consider Louis AH MOUY. > >He was born 1826 in Taishan, China, died 28 Apr 1918 in South Melbourne, >Victoria, Australia and buried 29 Apr 1918 in Melbourne Cemetery, >Victoria, Australia. The villiage of Tang Mien Pao in the far north of >Taishan adjacent to the Xinhui border may have been his ancestral village. >It is believed he came from a family of twelve, with only a sister still >living in China at the time of his death. > >You can get more information from the "Australian Dictionary of Biography". > >** Also look at this Australian obituary from the Herald of Melbourne, 30 >Apr 1918: > >A VETERAN CHINESE >DEATH AT MIDDLE PARK > >In this country it is seldom indeed that the natural death of a Chinese is >made the subject of special reference in the press, but exception is made >in the instance recorded below, deceased being the first Chinese to land >in Victoria, and being highly esteemed, as are his family, for his many >outstanding good qualities. > >At the age of 92 years, Mr. Louey Ah Mouey, who has been a colonist of >Victoria for 67 years, died at his home at 16 Nimmo Street, Middle Park, >on Sunday. > >A builder by trade, Mr. Ah Mouey was the first Chinese to land in >Victoria, coming out from Canton in 1851 under contract to erect some >buildings for Captain Glendinning, the master of the sailing vessel by >which he travelled. It is claimed that he built the first houses that >existed in South Melbourne and Williamstown. > >Soon after his arrival here, he wrote to his brother in Canton to come to >Victoria. The letter was intercepted in China, and it is assumed that this >initiated the immigration of Chinese to Victoria. > >Mr. Ah Mouey was a great mining investor and speculator, and in the >fifties with Chinese labour, he opened up many mines in the Yea district. >After having been eight or ten years in Victoria, he could speak the >English language fluently, and read and write excellently. As the result >of his marriage in Victoria to a woman of his own nationality, Mr. Ah >Mouey leaves seven sones, three daughters, and 12 grandchildren. The >daughters and two sons are married. One son, Mr. Ling Ah Mouey, is a >member of the legal profession in Melbourne, and another Mr. M. H. Ah >Mouey, is an architect, living in Middle Park. Both were well known in >local sporting circles as cricketers of more than average skill. A >grandson is employed as an electrical engineer in the Postmaster-General's >Department. Six of the sons are in Melbourne, while the seventh is a >retired merchant living in Hong Kong. One daughter is living in Victoria, >and the other two in Calcutta and America. A sister is living in China. >Mr. Ah Mouey was well known in business circles, he having been a tea >merchant and an importer and exporter, of 200 Swanston Street. > >His remains were interred in the Church of England portion of the >Melbourne Cemetery on Monday afternoon. > >** Then Jilong is the ancestral home of Gary Locke, a recent Governor of >Washington State USA. This small fish and rice farming village in Shuibu >Township was settled in 1715 by the Liu clan, amongst others, and lies on >the southern banks of the Pearl River Delta. The villagers have a >tradition of emigrating in order to improve their lot in life. > >** And then there is the report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of 10 >October 1997. > >Jilong lays out best to welcome him 'home' >Village turns into world capital for locke's visit > >Friday, October 10, 1997 > >By RACHEL ZIMMERMAN >SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL BUREAU > >JILONG, China -- Half a mile up a one-lane dirt road, past a pair of >grazing water buffalo, an unmarked grave stands at the edge of a vast >expanse of rice paddies. > >There is no tombstone or tablet to mark the importance of the place, only >a mound of dirt over which no grass has grown. But the quiet, unremarkable >site in Guangdong province will take on remarkable significance tomorrow, >when Gov. Gary Locke arrives here in his ancestral village and visits the >grave of his great-grandfather, the first of three generations of Lockes >to pack up their families and leave China with the hope that life might be >better in America. > >If the villagers of this agrarian outpost seem more giddy than reverential >as they huddle around the gravesite, it's probably because they've never >been in the spotlight like this before. And it won't likely happen again. > >Nearly 2,000 people -- more than 10 times the population of the entire >village -- are expected to descend onto the mud flats and squeeze through >the narrow stone walkways of Jilong, a cluster of 47 tiny houses and 180 >people who live with no running water and little contact with the outside >world. > >Tomorrow, though, the world will come to them. Children will croon and >dragon-headed dancers will perform and the feasting on local Taishan >shrimp and steamed pork buns and deep-fried duck feet will likely go on >for hours. > >At the head of the banquet table will be Jilong's favorite son, America's >first Chinese American governor, surrounded by a small army of >journalists, local officials and family members who have traveled halfway >around the world to come home. > >"It's a long journey back to his origins," says the governor's uncle, Yao >Zhang Locke, sitting in the two-room brick house he shares with 13 other >Locke cousins and in-laws and toddlers, the same house where the >governor's father was born and where he returned to celebrate his >marriage. "Now we say, 'At last, he's come back.' We hoped he would >someday, he must come back here to understand himself." > >Speaking softly in his native Toishanese, dressed in a faded blue cotton >Mao jacket and matching pants, Yao, who has never lived outside this >peasant village, struggles through looks and gestures to explain what this >cross-continental, multigenerational family reunion means. > >"I look forward to meeting Gary," says the slight, silver-haired patriarch >of the Locke clan, speaking through an interpreter, and pointing to an >entire wall covered with snapshots and portraits that chronicle the family >diaspora to Chinatowns around the United States. "Since he was selected as >governor, he has already been welcomed in America, but when he comes to >the village, he will be welcomed here, too. The governor is American, but >his origin is here in China." > >Since virtually all the families in Taishan County, in Southeastern >Guangdong province, have overseas Chinese relatives, homecomings are >nothing new. But not a single government official preparing for tomorrow's >visit -- and there are plenty of them -- can remember a spectacle of this >magnitude coming to town. > >"This is a first," says Liao Jian Sheng, a Communist Party official, whose >business card says he works at the Economic System Reforming Office of >Taishan City People's Government. > >Liao, former manager of the Bank of China and one of the chief party >planners here because he speaks some English, explains that at least five >layers of local government are working out the intricacies of the Locke visit. > >About eight such municipal leaders, sipping tea and eating bananas, gather >for a midmorning meeting in a town office. With the same gravity their >comrades displayed at the recent Communist Party Congress to discuss the >future of the People's Republic, they discuss such critical details as >whether they must build Locke and his entourage a special toilet for the >day, since modern plumbing is a luxury that has eluded Jilong. > >The men form a committee to welcome the governor and his wife, his elderly >parents and four siblings when they disembark at the Gong Yi pier, about >45 minutes from the village. The Guangdong provincial government, they >learn, is working out ground transportation. And officials of Taishan >City, a cacophonous little town nearby where all forms of business, from a >shave and a haircut to porridge-making, are conducted on the street, focus >on planning a luncheon banquet for 200 at the Garden Hotel. > >In the days leading up to the visit, ranking members of the Communist >Party trek to the Locke homestead, stepping over chickens and navigating >past baskets of rice, for briefings with the family. The women take time >off work at the local clothing factory and the men stop picking vegetables >to talk logistics. As they listen for instructions, the steamy midday sun >filters into the room through glassless windows cut out of brick. > >The mayor of Shuibu, the nearest town, tells one cousin, who has been >wearing a Gary Locke for Governor T-shirt for days, to make sure the >gutters encircling the village are cleaned. The cousin, Bojun Locke, nods. >Then the mayor urges Locke's uncle to consider placing a large headstone >on the ancestral grave. The uncle says no, it is against family tradition. > >The mayor, a lanky man with an unruly mop of jet-black hair who receives a >barrage of cell phone calls all afternoon regarding security for the >visit, announces that Locke's trip would be incomplete without a stop at >Shuibu kindergarten. > >"We hear he has done a lot for education," the mayor says, somehow getting >wind of the governor's political mantra. > >The act of returning home is a long-standing tradition here. > >"The governor is doing a very Confucian thing," notes author Paul Theroux, >who has written extensively on China. "It's the whole notion of filial >piety. He is showing respect for his ancestors and reverence for his >family. For the Chinese, the homeland is at the center of the world, it's >the most important place to be." > >It won't matter to the villagers that all vestiges of Locke's Toishanese, >which he spoke until kindergarten, have disappeared and that his Boy Scout >pragmatism is American to the core. > >On the contrary, the residents of Jilong are in many ways beholden to >their overseas nephews and cousins, grinning wildly as they show a guest >their first telephone, a gift from Jimmy Locke, the governor's father, and >their first washing machine, a gift from cousin Betty of San Francisco. > >"The Chinese place an enormous stock in Chinese-ness," Theroux says. "And >while this governor may be American, that's of little importance. The >Chinese don't sever links; no one, even if they live overseas, is ever >regarded as being lost." > >But when Locke leaves the swank urban glamour of Hong Kong for a four-hour >jetfoil ride to Jilong on the mainland, he might, indeed, feel lost. > > >From the moment he is handed a health declaration form on the boat, > which demands to know if, for example, he has AIDS, psychosis or venereal > disease, he will realize he's not in Western Washington anymore. > >The audacious neon skyline view from Kowloon fades into bleak state-run >factories whose stultifying fumes hang over the banks of the Pearl River. >That scene gives way to a village of poor farmers with blackened teeth, an >ancestral home that the governor may find eerily foreign. > >"It will be a very poignant moment for Gary when he touches the Chinese >soil in his native village," says Ron Chew, director of Seattle's Wing >Luke Asian Museum and a keen follower of Locke's political ascent from >legislator to King County executive to governor. > >"Every Chinese American who goes to their village comes back changed. You >realize how American you really are, but also how very Chinese you are," >Chew said. "For once, everyone looks like you. After that, he will be >transformed. No speech on immigrants will ever feel the same." > >Days before his departure, sitting in an ornate state office twice the >size of his father's original home, Locke said visiting the village with >his entire family was "a longtime dream." > >"It's an opportunity to retrace our roots," the governor said. "It's like >going back to the origins, the sources of immigration to the United States." > >Locke's sentimental trek to Jilong continues a cultural journey begun by >his great-grandfather, Rock Wing Chun, who labored on the American >railroads. The migration continued with Locke's grandfather, Suey Gim, a >houseboy in Olympia who traveled back and forth between China and the >United States and Locke's father, who came to America, fought in World War >II and then opened a Chinese restaurant on the Seattle waterfront. > >Locke, 47, evoked his immigrant roots in an emotional inaugural speech in >January. When he danced under the Capitol dome with his pregnant wife, >Mona, the scene was broadcast around the nation as an Asian American Camelot. > >"I never really think a lot about symbolism," said Locke when asked to >portray the meaning of his visit. "I suppose I don't think enough about >it, especially for something like this, a private thing that I really >wanted to do for my family." > >None of the symbolism and analysis means much in Jilong, either. Not to >the bony shirtless boys carrying appliances on the backs of rust-covered, >rickety bikes, nor the construction workers hanging off bamboo scaffolding >10 stories high. The only thing that matters is that a Chinese American >who has attained political power is showing the world where he got his start. > >"This is a family, like so many other families, who in some very >significant ways never really left," says Theroux. "The village was always >a source of inspiration, the wellspring of their being and culture. It >wasn't like his father went to St. Louis, Mo., to look for a wife. He went >home. In the same way, Locke's going home is an inspiration for him and >for those who remain." > > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >P-I reporter Rachel Zimmerman can be reached at 360-943-3990 or >rachelzimmerman@seattle-pi.com > > > >Send comments to webmaster@seattle-pi.com >© 1998 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. >All rights reserved.

** You may want to consider Louis AH MOUY. He was born 1826 in Taishan, China, died 28 Apr 1918 in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and buried 29 Apr 1918 in Melbourne Cemetery, Victoria, Australia. The villiage of Tang Mien Pao in the far north of Taishan adjacent to the Xinhui border may have been his ancestral village. It is believed he came from a family of twelve, with only a sister still living in China at the time of his death. You can get more information from the "Australian Dictionary of Biography". ** Also look at this Australian obituary from the Herald of Melbourne, 30 Apr 1918: A VETERAN CHINESE DEATH AT MIDDLE PARK In this country it is seldom indeed that the natural death of a Chinese is made the subject of special reference in the press, but exception is made in the instance recorded below, deceased being the first Chinese to land in Victoria, and being highly esteemed, as are his family, for his many outstanding good qualities. At the age of 92 years, Mr. Louey Ah Mouey, who has been a colonist of Victoria for 67 years, died at his home at 16 Nimmo Street, Middle Park, on Sunday. A builder by trade, Mr. Ah Mouey was the first Chinese to land in Victoria, coming out from Canton in 1851 under contract to erect some buildings for Captain Glendinning, the master of the sailing vessel by which he travelled. It is claimed that he built the first houses that existed in South Melbourne and Williamstown. Soon after his arrival here, he wrote to his brother in Canton to come to Victoria. The letter was intercepted in China, and it is assumed that this initiated the immigration of Chinese to Victoria. Mr. Ah Mouey was a great mining investor and speculator, and in the fifties with Chinese labour, he opened up many mines in the Yea district. After having been eight or ten years in Victoria, he could speak the English language fluently, and read and write excellently. As the result of his marriage in Victoria to a woman of his own nationality, Mr. Ah Mouey leaves seven sones, three daughters, and 12 grandchildren. The daughters and two sons are married. One son, Mr. Ling Ah Mouey, is a member of the legal profession in Melbourne, and another Mr. M. H. Ah Mouey, is an architect, living in Middle Park. Both were well known in local sporting circles as cricketers of more than average skill. A grandson is employed as an electrical engineer in the Postmaster-General's Department. Six of the sons are in Melbourne, while the seventh is a retired merchant living in Hong Kong. One daughter is living in Victoria, and the other two in Calcutta and America. A sister is living in China. Mr. Ah Mouey was well known in business circles, he having been a tea merchant and an importer and exporter, of 200 Swanston Street. His remains were interred in the Church of England portion of the Melbourne Cemetery on Monday afternoon. ** Then Jilong is the ancestral home of Gary Locke, a recent Governor of Washington State USA. This small fish and rice farming village in Shuibu Township was settled in 1715 by the Liu clan, amongst others, and lies on the southern banks of the Pearl River Delta. The villagers have a tradition of emigrating in order to improve their lot in life. ** And then there is the report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of 10 October 1997. Jilong lays out best to welcome him 'home' Village turns into world capital for locke's visit Friday, October 10, 1997 By RACHEL ZIMMERMAN SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL BUREAU JILONG, China -- Half a mile up a one-lane dirt road, past a pair of grazing water buffalo, an unmarked grave stands at the edge of a vast expanse of rice paddies. There is no tombstone or tablet to mark the importance of the place, only a mound of dirt over which no grass has grown. But the quiet, unremarkable site in Guangdong province will take on remarkable significance tomorrow, when Gov. Gary Locke arrives here in his ancestral village and visits the grave of his great-grandfather, the first of three generations of Lockes to pack up their families and leave China with the hope that life might be better in America. If the villagers of this agrarian outpost seem more giddy than reverential as they huddle around the gravesite, it's probably because they've never been in the spotlight like this before. And it won't likely happen again. Nearly 2,000 people -- more than 10 times the population of the entire village -- are expected to descend onto the mud flats and squeeze through the narrow stone walkways of Jilong, a cluster of 47 tiny houses and 180 people who live with no running water and little contact with the outside world. Tomorrow, though, the world will come to them. Children will croon and dragon-headed dancers will perform and the feasting on local Taishan shrimp and steamed pork buns and deep-fried duck feet will likely go on for hours. At the head of the banquet table will be Jilong's favorite son, America's first Chinese American governor, surrounded by a small army of journalists, local officials and family members who have traveled halfway around the world to come home. "It's a long journey back to his origins," says the governor's uncle, Yao Zhang Locke, sitting in the two-room brick house he shares with 13 other Locke cousins and in-laws and toddlers, the same house where the governor's father was born and where he returned to celebrate his marriage. "Now we say, 'At last, he's come back.' We hoped he would someday, he must come back here to understand himself." Speaking softly in his native Toishanese, dressed in a faded blue cotton Mao jacket and matching pants, Yao, who has never lived outside this peasant village, struggles through looks and gestures to explain what this cross-continental, multigenerational family reunion means. "I look forward to meeting Gary," says the slight, silver-haired patriarch of the Locke clan, speaking through an interpreter, and pointing to an entire wall covered with snapshots and portraits that chronicle the family diaspora to Chinatowns around the United States. "Since he was selected as governor, he has already been welcomed in America, but when he comes to the village, he will be welcomed here, too. The governor is American, but his origin is here in China." Since virtually all the families in Taishan County, in Southeastern Guangdong province, have overseas Chinese relatives, homecomings are nothing new. But not a single government official preparing for tomorrow's visit -- and there are plenty of them -- can remember a spectacle of this magnitude coming to town. "This is a first," says Liao Jian Sheng, a Communist Party official, whose business card says he works at the Economic System Reforming Office of Taishan City People's Government. Liao, former manager of the Bank of China and one of the chief party planners here because he speaks some English, explains that at least five layers of local government are working out the intricacies of the Locke visit. About eight such municipal leaders, sipping tea and eating bananas, gather for a midmorning meeting in a town office. With the same gravity their comrades displayed at the recent Communist Party Congress to discuss the future of the People's Republic, they discuss such critical details as whether they must build Locke and his entourage a special toilet for the day, since modern plumbing is a luxury that has eluded Jilong. The men form a committee to welcome the governor and his wife, his elderly parents and four siblings when they disembark at the Gong Yi pier, about 45 minutes from the village. The Guangdong provincial government, they learn, is working out ground transportation. And officials of Taishan City, a cacophonous little town nearby where all forms of business, from a shave and a haircut to porridge-making, are conducted on the street, focus on planning a luncheon banquet for 200 at the Garden Hotel. In the days leading up to the visit, ranking members of the Communist Party trek to the Locke homestead, stepping over chickens and navigating past baskets of rice, for briefings with the family. The women take time off work at the local clothing factory and the men stop picking vegetables to talk logistics. As they listen for instructions, the steamy midday sun filters into the room through glassless windows cut out of brick. The mayor of Shuibu, the nearest town, tells one cousin, who has been wearing a Gary Locke for Governor T-shirt for days, to make sure the gutters encircling the village are cleaned. The cousin, Bojun Locke, nods. Then the mayor urges Locke's uncle to consider placing a large headstone on the ancestral grave. The uncle says no, it is against family tradition. The mayor, a lanky man with an unruly mop of jet-black hair who receives a barrage of cell phone calls all afternoon regarding security for the visit, announces that Locke's trip would be incomplete without a stop at Shuibu kindergarten. "We hear he has done a lot for education," the mayor says, somehow getting wind of the governor's political mantra. The act of returning home is a long-standing tradition here. "The governor is doing a very Confucian thing," notes author Paul Theroux, who has written extensively on China. "It's the whole notion of filial piety. He is showing respect for his ancestors and reverence for his family. For the Chinese, the homeland is at the center of the world, it's the most important place to be." It won't matter to the villagers that all vestiges of Locke's Toishanese, which he spoke until kindergarten, have disappeared and that his Boy Scout pragmatism is American to the core. On the contrary, the residents of Jilong are in many ways beholden to their overseas nephews and cousins, grinning wildly as they show a guest their first telephone, a gift from Jimmy Locke, the governor's father, and their first washing machine, a gift from cousin Betty of San Francisco. "The Chinese place an enormous stock in Chinese-ness," Theroux says. "And while this governor may be American, that's of little importance. The Chinese don't sever links; no one, even if they live overseas, is ever regarded as being lost." But when Locke leaves the swank urban glamour of Hong Kong for a four-hour jetfoil ride to Jilong on the mainland, he might, indeed, feel lost. >From the moment he is handed a health declaration form on the boat, which demands to know if, for example, he has AIDS, psychosis or venereal disease, he will realize he's not in Western Washington anymore. The audacious neon skyline view from Kowloon fades into bleak state-run factories whose stultifying fumes hang over the banks of the Pearl River. That scene gives way to a village of poor farmers with blackened teeth, an ancestral home that the governor may find eerily foreign. "It will be a very poignant moment for Gary when he touches the Chinese soil in his native village," says Ron Chew, director of Seattle's Wing Luke Asian Museum and a keen follower of Locke's political ascent from legislator to King County executive to governor. "Every Chinese American who goes to their village comes back changed. You realize how American you really are, but also how very Chinese you are," Chew said. "For once, everyone looks like you. After that, he will be transformed. No speech on immigrants will ever feel the same." Days before his departure, sitting in an ornate state office twice the size of his father's original home, Locke said visiting the village with his entire family was "a longtime dream." "It's an opportunity to retrace our roots," the governor said. "It's like going back to the origins, the sources of immigration to the United States." Locke's sentimental trek to Jilong continues a cultural journey begun by his great-grandfather, Rock Wing Chun, who labored on the American railroads. The migration continued with Locke's grandfather, Suey Gim, a houseboy in Olympia who traveled back and forth between China and the United States and Locke's father, who came to America, fought in World War II and then opened a Chinese restaurant on the Seattle waterfront. Locke, 47, evoked his immigrant roots in an emotional inaugural speech in January. When he danced under the Capitol dome with his pregnant wife, Mona, the scene was broadcast around the nation as an Asian American Camelot. "I never really think a lot about symbolism," said Locke when asked to portray the meaning of his visit. "I suppose I don't think enough about it, especially for something like this, a private thing that I really wanted to do for my family." None of the symbolism and analysis means much in Jilong, either. Not to the bony shirtless boys carrying appliances on the backs of rust-covered, rickety bikes, nor the construction workers hanging off bamboo scaffolding 10 stories high. The only thing that matters is that a Chinese American who has attained political power is showing the world where he got his start. "This is a family, like so many other families, who in some very significant ways never really left," says Theroux. "The village was always a source of inspiration, the wellspring of their being and culture. It wasn't like his father went to St. Louis, Mo., to look for a wife. He went home. In the same way, Locke's going home is an inspiration for him and for those who remain." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P-I reporter Rachel Zimmerman can be reached at 360-943-3990 or rachelzimmerman@seattle-pi.com Send comments to webmaster@seattle-pi.com © 1998 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved.

hi, can you possibly know which part of xiamen they are from? i am also searching for my paternal ancestors surnamed Quah / Qua / Cua.

Hi. I am interested to trace my family's history, specifically on my father side. He hails from Fujian and came here to stay in the Philippines in 1976, passing through Hong Kong 1974 or 1975. We still have the ancestral home in China, in a village called "lin khow" *Mandarin name*. I hope someone can help me in this area.