Don’t Trust Everything You Read: the Importance of Verifying Source Material
Michael Ho President of Chinese Family History Group 2018-2020 I have been researching my family history for over thirty years. This is absolutely true, but it does raise an interesting question: Aren’t you done yet? Let’s flashback to when I got started. I was interested in hearing family stories at an early age, and I…
Read MoreMembers Writing Family Stories
Prompt: Write about the person that raised you. Write about the things he/she did that annoyed you or things that you are grateful for. Write about the things you realized as an adult but didn’t understand as a child. Growing Up With Paupau By Vicky Lowe Hall Shee was born on March 18, 1896 to…
Read MoreMembers Writing Family Stories
What do you do with all the research you have amassed about your family’s history? How do you organize, document and preserve your story and your ancestor’s stories? The Chinese Family History Group offered a writing workshop for members in 2022, led by Cynthia Lim. Using writing prompts, participants started with scenes or short pieces…
Read MoreMy Father Was My Gateway To American Life. Then I Found Out He Lied To Get Into This Country.
Published by The Huffington Post, May 28, 2022 “Reading their files made me uneasy. Their claim to citizenship was based on a lie. Were they ‘illegal immigrants’? Did that mean I wasn’t a true American?” By Cynthia Lim The one thing I thought I knew for certain was that my Chinese father, Mow Lim, was allowed…
Read MoreLinking Family Stories to National and Global Historical Trends
As a Professor of History at California State University Fullerton (CSUF), I have benefited tremendously from attending the meetings of the Chinese Family History Group of Southern California. In fact, meeting the members online and hearing the various speakers has been one of the highlights of this past year for me. While my training is…
Read MoreThe Chinese in Cuba
A Friends of Roots (FOR) cohort traveled to Cuba in March 2020 to explore the Chinese presence which dates back to the 1830s and 1840s. Cuba was occupied by the Spanish empire for some 400 years. By the 1830s some Chinese arrived in Cuba from the Philippines (another Spanish colony) by way of the Manila galleon…
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