Genealogical Records in South China: with a Focus on the Comparison of Printed and Hand-written Texts

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The main purpose of this research is to show how diverse the genealogical records kept by lineages and clans in South China in their social functions, and also to understand the background of this diversity, through the comparison of various types of genealogies collected in my field and library research in China and Japan. First, I compared the social function of hand-written genealogies and printed genealogies based on the materials collected in Guangdong and Hainan. Documents generally called zupu in Chinese contains many different types of genealogical records. It is common to all these hand-written genealogies that the social range of people who are included in document intends to be closed within themselves, not open for any remote nor fictive kin to build a new social tie. To the contrary, printed genealogies with many copies always have a function of creating new social ties and common identity through their compilation among those kinsmen who had little contact before. In the … More way of compiling genealogical records, we can find two alternative modes; to hand-write only one or two original copies, or to print a lot of copies at the same time. These two modes have coexisted in the same areas and in the same periods, and therefore we cannot explain them as a difference of local tradition nor a change in writing style. Neither we cannot reduce it to such a mere pragmatic factor as the difference in economic condition of the compilers. It is because each of these two modes of genealogical compilation has its own social function just **entioned above that both of them have been maintained through time in the same area. These two types of genealogical records roughly correspond to the lineage genealogies maintained in a specific local community and the clan genealogy shared by a wider range of people. But, at the same time I show that among the recent compilation boom of genealogy, these two levels of compilation activities are often related to each other and go on together. It seems that recent prosperous condition of local economy and the increased flow of people and information between South China homeland and Hong Kong or other overseas communities lead to more diversity in the style and nature of the genealogical records produced by lineages and clans. Less