[Sat, Nov 7, 1:00-2:00pm & 2:00-3:30pm] Whether you’re just getting started or are a pro, hear about ways to discover Chinese-American ancestral roots and family history.
Learn about finding Chinese-American ancestries, such as locating home villages; building a family tree; obtaining records and clan genealogy books; contacting lost relatives; and more.
Join us for a back-to-back session with experienced genealogists, researchers, and photojournalists: Amy Chin, Alan Chin, Huihan Lie (My China Roots) and Griffin Ong (Friends of Roots). RSVP via the link below - your ticket applies to both sessions. Drop in or stay for both parts!
[1:00-2:00pm] Finding Home in Toisan and Hoiping
Two Photographic Journeys to Ancestral Villages
Photojournalist Alan Chin
Photographer Griffin Ong/Friends of Roots
What does it mean to find your way home to a place you’ve never known?
Photojournalist Alan Chin and photographer Griffin Ong followed different paths to discover their families’ ancestral villages in Taishan(Toisan/Hoisan) and Kaiping (Hoiping), in southern China—the homeland of many of the earliest Chinese immigrants to America. Through vivid and intimate photographs, they document the places their ancestors left behind generations ago, revealing what remains, what has changed, and what it means to reconnect with a place woven into their family histories.
Join us to hear the stories behind their journeys, explore the villages they found, and discover how you, too, might trace your roots and find your way home.
[2:00-3:30pm] Finding Ancestors on Two Shores
Tracing Chinese American Family Histories Across Generations and Continents
Huihan Lie, Founder of My China Roots
Amy Chin, Chinese American Genealogist
Every family has a story. But what happens when that story is scattered across two continents, hidden in old documents, or nearly lost to time?
Huihan Lie, founder of My China Roots, leads a team of researchers in China who help people reconnect with long-lost ancestors and uncover the histories of their ancestral hometowns. Chinese American genealogist Amy Chin specializes in uncovering Chinese American family histories through the records, clues, and stories that illuminate the lives of earlier generations. Her own family research was featured in an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society and later transformed into a graphic novel, now included in the NYC Department of Education’s Comics for All social studies curriculum.
Together, Huihan and Amy will share discoveries from their research journeys and explore how family histories can be recovered across borders and generations. Whether you’re just beginning or returning to a search that has stalled, get tips on how you can start—or restart—your own journey to uncover the people, places, and stories that shaped your family.
SPEAKERS:
Alan Chin was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. He has worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Central Asia, and Ukraine, as well as extensively in the United States. He is a contributing photographer to The New York Times, contributing writer and photographer for Reuters Analysis & Opinion, and many other publications. He is also an instructor and adviser at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, his work is in the collection of the Museum Of Modern Art, and he is Co-Director of Facing Change: Documenting Detroit (FCDD). Chin was nominated twice by The New York Times for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Kosovo conflict.
Amy Chin is a genealogist and researcher specializing in Chinese American ancestries. For decades, Amy’s family carefully saved records, objects, and other personal artifacts. After discovering this trove of old family treasures in her late mother’s belongings, Amy began what she calls her ‘journey to unforgetting’. She researched and pieced together her family’s immigration story which was later re-interpreted as a 12-panel comic book/graphic novel for the New York Historical Society’s exhibition “Chinese American Exclusion/Inclusion” which toured the country. In addition to her own research, she provides public workshops and genealogy consultation services.
Huihan Lie founded My China Roots in 2012 after traveling to Fujian province to retrace his own ancestral footsteps and realizing how many overseas Chinese lacked resources to trace their heritage. The company provides archival research, translation services, roots-travel planning, and a searchable database of millions of Chinese clan genealogies (zupus) and overseas records. MCR is the global leader in ancestry research and travel in China.
Griffin Ong is a Brooklyn-based street photographer born and raised in San Francisco. He is interested in capturing the interaction between people and the built environment in the spaces we inhabit. He is also passionate about food, history, and the evolution of cultures across time and space, especially as it pertains to Asian diasporic communities.
(illustrations by James Chan)