Thank You Letters

Letter from Susan Gong, susanlgong@gmail.com

Jan 11, 2016

Dear Tsung Tsin Association,

Happy Year of the Monkey!

We are writing in appreciation for the wonderful research done by Dr. Oliver Lee on the history of Hakka families in Hawaii and in gratitude to Tsung Tsin Association for posting the information on the internet for others to find. Thank you for helping preserve our precious heritage.

My husband is a grandson of On Char and Marguerite Liu Char. We believe On Char’s father Char Loy Kui (also called 谢振能) was born in Dongguan and immigrated to Hawaii in about 1888 with his wife Ng (吳）Shee and a daughter later called Mary. Other Hakka relatives who immigrated from Bao’an to Hawaii include 曾，丘，and 劉s. Their names, or those of their sons may well be among those on the membership registration rolls from the 1920s. Is there information beyond names and places of origin in the records? Is it possible to make copies of records that might shed some light on our family story?

After considerable detective work by a niece in our family, recently we were able to make contact with descendants of Char Loy Kui (he returned to China in his old age and fathered another family) living in a town near modern Shenzhen. A year ago we travelled there to meet them. As you can imagine it was delightful to have two branches of the family united after nearly eighty years without contact. We have engaged the services of a researcher in Hong Kong to work with them to locate clan records but have to date not been successful.

We hope you can advise us as to how to locate more details about our family’s story and possibly guide us to clan genealogies. From information in the lecture Dr. Lee presented on July 8, 2012, Part 2, Hakka Migrations, it looks as though Dr. Lee may have access to records detailing the migration of Char family members from southern Fujian, into Guangdong and possibly specifically to Dongguan. It seems very likely that our family tie into this line of the Char clan. We would be very happy for any information you are able to provide as to how to locate these clan records.

We will be visiting Honolulu for a week in June accompanying my mother-in-law from California as she celebrates her 90th birthday with her surviving siblings and visits the graves of her parents and grandparents. We would be deeply grateful if you could suggest any avenues of research we might pursue while we are there.

Again, thank you for helping preserve the stories and heritage of the Hakka community in Honolulu. I look forward to hearing from you.

With deep appreciation and wishes for a very happy new year,

S. L. Gong