A Brief Introduction to Some of Our Members

Alan

I have joined CAFHOV along with my wife, who is Australian-born Chinese, to assist in her family research. I also joined because I enjoy solving complex puzzles (family history research with Chinese language thrown in makes it more interesting and challenging). I helped locate the ancestral village in Taishan of my wife’s grandfather, which we were fortunate enough to visit in 2018. Also in 2018, I helped locate another ancestral village for my wife’s cousin. Many amazing stories about the newly discovered ancestors have come to pass which has made the research even more rewarding.

The research is all linked to my recent interest in understanding more of world history and culture. I hope to continue to help uncover further ancestral connections for her and perhaps assist others in CAFHOV as well. No Chinese shows in my DNA, I am a New Zealand-born, Australian citizen, “typical Anglo-Saxon”(?) with ancestral roots in Western Europe (Germanic), England, Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia (Viking), with a touch of Maori and even a bit of Jewish linage all thrown in! Possibly not an uncommon mix for someone with so-called “English” ancestry if they explore their family tree!

Anna

My father came to Australia in 1949 and, for a long time, that was about all I knew about the Louey family in Australia. The rest of his family was living in Guangdong, but there were no close relatives here before my mother and I arrived in Australia. I was in my teens when I first met my paternal grandparents on my first trip to mainland China with my father. On this trip, I also got to meet many of my father’s siblings and nieces and nephews.

My parents passed away in 2012. In sorting the contents of their home, many “treasures” were found and many questions were raised about where they came from and their family histories. Amongst my father’s papers, I found a copy of the Louey family tree, but the Chinese names were unfamiliar to me. Sadly, it was too late to ask my parents about them. There were family stories or snippets, but nothing that I really took an interest in or pursued, until now.

In the last couple of years, through CAFHOV, I have found that my great-grandfather came to Australia in the late 1890s, spending some time in Bendigo as well as Melbourne, likely trading in Chinese herbal medicine. His cousin arrived in Melbourne a few years before him and had started a merchant business. Through one of my cousins in China, I found that both businesses had links to a parent company in Hong Kong. I have to say, from the moment I saw the photo of my great-grandfather in the National Archive of Australia files and held it in my hands, I was hooked. Since then, I have embarked on a journey of discovery of my parents as well as Melbourne’s Chinatown.

Anne

I have been greatly interested in family history research. I discovered I had Chinese ancestry after doing a DNA test in the hope of finding who my grandfather was, as my father had been adopted. I found that Dad’s great-grandfather was Barney Hong Coon who came to Australia in the 1850s. He married Esther Bound after having 5 children with her. She was then charged with bigamy as she already had a husband, Dan Sam from Amoy (and son). Barney was a cook, sheep farmer, and market gardener around Cavendish and Hamilton, Victoria. As well, on my father’s mother’s side, my great-great-grandfather lived in the Chinese camp in Bendigo and his sister had a Chinese partner, Ah Foon. My partner also has Chinese ancestry, his great-grandfather being Luk Ah Kim, a market gardener in Richmond and Kyneton. Researching these families has been fascinating and CAFHOV members have been very helpful.

Barbara

Having developed a passion for Melbourne’s urban history, and at times finding myself questioning accepted historical understandings, particularly regarding the Euro-centric development of the city’s early business sector, I chose as my Ph.D. research focus to investigate Melbourne’s early Chinese restaurants and their relationship with the city broadly from the late nineteenth century and over the life of the White Australia policy. I found that, while discrimination was undeniably present, the connection between the establishment and growth of the city’s public dining sector and the city’s socio-cultural, economic, and political landscape was more complex and interdependent than is generally acknowledged and was often at odds with official racialised attitudes towards the early Chinese presence.

I discovered CAFHOV in the early years of my research and became a grateful beneficiary of members’ experiences and suggestions.  I’ve been a member ever since and, I hope, have been able to contribute useful research suggestions to those about to commence their family history journey. I’m currently working on publishing my research.

Cornell

I am part of the first generation of our family born in Australia. My father came to Australia in 1950 to study medicine. He met my mother in Melbourne and they decided to stay put! My grandfather and the rest of my relatives migrated once my father was granted citizenship.  Much to my surprise, my roots in Melbourne actually stem from my grandfather. He had been posted to Melbourne in the late 1920s as a former diplomat.

I have always been deeply curious about my family background. My father bequeathed me a lot of documents and photos from my grandfather. However, he never elaborated on what they represented. And I never had the opportunity to ask my grandfather. Hence, my path to CAFHOV! I hope to unravel the past and deepen my connection to Melbourne, my home town!

Derek

I have just commenced researching the lives of my paternal grandfather Ernest Leong Gie and his family.  Ernest arrived in Australia from Kaiping County, Guangdong Province in 1899 when he was about 16 years of age.  He worked as a fruit merchant, market gardener, and then as a cabinet maker.  Early in the 1900s he also became a Christian which eventually led him to become the Minister of the Chinese Methodist Church at 196 Little Bourke Street in the early 1920s. He held this post until he retired in 1954. 

His wife Shee Hoy Leong (my grandmother) and his son John Leong (my father) joined him in Melbourne in 1928 and they all lived at the Church.

My grandparents had 3 older daughters who initially remained in China but 2 of them eventually migrated to Australia. In 1978, my father and I visited the Leong family village of Doong Hing, Kaiping County. This was the first time he had returned to the village since he left in 1928 as a 5-year-old.

My basic aim is to document the story of Ernest Leong Gie’s family for their descendants. While, at this stage, I am mainly concentrating on my father’s family I am also very interested in my mother’s side. My maternal great-grandfather was Chen Ah Kew (aka Jimmy Ah Kew) who arrived in Australia in the early 1850s. He had 6 children including my grandfather William (Chen) Wing Young. But that’s another story.  

I recently joined CAFHOV and it has been of great assistance to me in my research.

My short journey into the past has so far been both fascinating and rewarding.

Diann

Diann Talbot was born in Bright, in North East Victoria, the fifth generation of her family, her great-great-grandparents settled there in the 1860s.  Diann’s love of local history came from the time she spent with her grandfather, Edward (Ted) Talbot.  Ted was born in Bright in 1878 and loved nothing better than driving around the district on Sunday afternoons reminiscing about the days of old.  He spoke highly of the Chinese and in his younger days had been friends with many; he could count to ten and say a few words in Chinese, a skill he tried in vain to pass on to his very inattentive granddaughter. After the death of her grandfather Diann’s yearning to learn more about the early days of Bright lead to her the realisation that the Chinese, who had once been predominant in the Upper Ovens, were rarely mentioned in local history publications, and coupled with a yearning to find out more about these forgotten men and to bring this important chapter of local history to the fore, she began to research the lives of the Chinese who once lived and toiled in the local area.  Added to this was the discovery of a photo in her great-grandmother’s photo album.  This discovery brought the revelation that there was a whole chapter of Chinese history yet to be told, it was the story, not only of the Chinese themselves but also of the women who were married to, or were part of their lives, and the children that eventuated from these unions.

Irene

My interest in Australian Chinese history started when researching our family tree. Along the way, I found Kate Bagnall’s blog ‘The Tiger’s Mouth’ which mentioned both my paternal and maternal grandfathers in separate sections. I was hooked then on finding out more about them!

My paternal grandfather was a banana merchant in Little Bourke Street, whilst my maternal great-grandfather was a market gardener. In researching their stories I am still finding my way around BDM Vic, PROV and TROVE and NAA files in my search for validation of their existence and what life was like for them in Melbourne in the early 1900s that led me to join CAFHOV.

Kristy

A DNA test in 2016 confirmed what we had always suspected – that my maternal grandfather’s unknown father was Chinese. This discovery led me to research a small segment of the Dongguanese community in New South Wales in the early 1900s – their involvement in charitable work, their work as tobacco farmers and carpenters, their military service for Australia, and their brushes with the law. This research is ongoing.

Learning more about my Chinese ancestry has fuelled a passion for helping other Chinese Australians find archival records about their ancestors. As part of this, I have played a small role in the CAFHOV Victorian CEDT Index project and assist with social media duties for our Facebook page. I’ve been a member of this generous and friendly community of family historians since early 2019.

Laraine

Dabbling in my Irish family history background, soon became the beginning of a bit of an obsession with genealogy.  It made me wonder if I could actually trace anything about the Chinese grandfather that I was aware that I had,  but knew nothing about.  Each “minor” success spurred me on to find out more,  and resulted in background details that I could never have dreamed of learning.  I now have some knowledge of past generations of my ancestors in China, but I am also very keen to discover more about my grandfather’s life from the moment he arrived in Australia around 1900.  Of particular interest is his involvement with lion dancing and Chinese opera/theatre activities in both Sydney and Melbourne from the early 1900s to mid 1900s.  I have a few pictures of him “in costume” with these groups,  one being the Chinese Youth Club.  I wonder if theatre was the common ground for my Chinese grandfather and my Australian (Irish descent) grandmother to have met. That is a mystery I would love to solve.

Linda

My parents came from rural villages in Guangzhou in the south of China, and they left in 1949, when the civil war was still raging.  They lived in the Philippines for a few years before migrating to Australia in about 1951, despite the White Australia Policy, with the help of family who had arrived here earlier. They lived initially in Sydney, before moving to Melbourne in 1958.  In Melbourne they owned and ran two restaurants, Fong Yuon in Glenferrie Road Malvern, and then Taiping in St Kilda Junction.

My father’s family tree (Fong/Kwong) has been compiled by distant Sydney relatives, but I discovered recently that there are some inaccuracies.  Also, it is male-biased, omitting the listing of the children of female family members. My mother’s family tree (Yip) has not been done.

I have had an interest in documenting my Chinese family heritage for some time, but did not have the wherewithal to even know where to start.  I joined CAFHOV in November 2018, and hope eventually to be able to join all the dots.

Louis

There were family stories I never took too seriously. A history told that failed to penetrate my wall of indifference. My father passed away in 2015. It was when I was sorting his personal effects that I came across photos, scribbled notes and a diary of events. Perhaps this was the trigger to an epiphany; questions which I didn’t know I would want answered might now never be answered … hit me like the proverbial ‘ton of bricks’.

My tentative steps into searching for some answers and the help of serendipity led me to CAFHOV and a group of people with an interest in Chinese Australian family history and many who have been undertaking a similar journey to mine. I wondered about the stories of my great grandfather and grandfather who came to Australia in 1892 and 1898 respectively.

It has been through CAFHOV that I have been made aware of a smorgasbord of sources of information. And also through CAFHOV that I have been privileged to meet many dedicated, helpful individuals who have been of enormous assistance in my journey.

Mei-Ling and John

Researching Mei-Ling’s family history over many years has been an exciting and rewarding journey.

Mei-Ling’s father was born in China and came to Australia as a student in 1940.  Researching her father, Gung Foon Chen’s ancestry led us to  Foon’s father, Loong Chin Chen.  Loong Chin Chen originally came to Australia in 1890. Like many Chinese, Loong Chin Chen’s wife, remained in China. Both father and son ran a successful wholesale/retail Fruit and Vegetable business at the Queen Victoria Market in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s.

Although we thought that we had found Loong Chen’s tablet at the See Yup Temple in South Melbourne, a deeper investigation showed that we were not correct The National Archives have been of invaluable assistance and researching records provided some fantastic discoveries that indeed lead us to the Ancestral Home in China of Loong Chin Chen.  Positive proof was his photo in the Home that had been featured in The Sun in 1948 on his return to China. It was titled REMEMBER ME.

Noela

My interest in my Chinese family history was piqued after completing a DNA test a couple of years ago. Sure enough, I was 20% Chinese, slightly less than I had imagined as my father was half Chinese, but such is the random nature of DNA. My paternal grandmother Nellie May Quong died when I was only 3 years old, so I never got to know the Chinese side of the family very well. My father was an only child and we lived far from his cousins. I began to wonder how my Chinese great grandparents came to be in Australia at all. My great grandfather came out in 1874 from Guangdong province and worked as a miner in Ballarat. Almost twenty years later my great grandmother arrived and married him within 5 weeks. She was nineteen and he was thirty-nine. She was also originally from Guangdong province and we believe she came from Shekki, now known as Zhongshan. They went on to have nine children and lived the rest of their lives in Ballarat. My grandmother was their fifth child. She caused quite a stir by marrying a White Australian man in 1924. Her two older sisters had married Chinese men. But after that marriage, the rest of the children who married all married White Australians so she set a precedent!

I have joined CAFHOV in the hope of discovering where my great grandparents originated from, and why they came to Australia. Both came when they were less than twenty years old, on a long journey to an unknown land, where they could not speak the language, and in the certain knowledge that they would never see their parents and siblings again. I believe it was an incredibly brave and intrepid step in search of a better life.

Patricia

My Family History research began some 40 years ago. My great grandfather Yett Soo War Way Lee [京山村 Yip Seow Wah] was born 6th August 1852, King Shan Village [Jingshancun] in Dong Guan County. He was a Mandarin of the 4th Degree (Crystal Button) and his great grandfather was an Admiral in the Chinese military and his mother was a titled lady.

I have been fortunate that my great grandfather featured in the news and parliamentary documents as he was involved in the betterment of conditions for all Chinese in Australia. My research has taken me far and wide, both in Australia and overseas. I have drawn on oral histories, newspapers and material in state and national archives and libraries. CAFHOV member, Andrew Wong, is currently helping me undertake Chinese-language research into my family.

Way Lee came to Sydney in 1874 and studied in Brisbane before coming to Adelaide and setting up one of his many business, Way Lee & Co. He married Annie McDonald in a Chinese ceremony around 1890 and in 1902 they married in Melbourne in a civic ceremony. Annie was the daughter of James McDonald and Margaret Kennedy of Victor Harbour, South Australia.

Selected projects related to Yett Soo War Way Lee:

Way Lee commemoration and launch 2009 “Way Lee100 Years On.” 

With the late Kevin Wong Hoy wrote, “Chinese feasts and festivals in colonial Australia,” Journal of Chinese Australia, 2006.

Peter

My interest in Chinese Ancestry stems from being a second generation Australian born 50:50 mix of Chinese and Jewish heritage. Grandmother Ivy Maud Fong (nee Yook) was born in 1892, in Albury, to Sam Ah Yook and Rose Ah-Ket. Access to her story on her mother’s side has been assisted by the ongoing family connections (to this day) between the Fong and Ah-Ket families, plus material written about Rose’s well-known younger brother William Ah Ket. I am yet to research the Yook history.

The earliest Chinese ancestors I have been able to identify to date are Rose Ket’s father Mah Ket and my great grandfather Fong Soong Tong, the latter thanks to some handwritten notes made in Chinese and English for my mother’s late sister, by a son of great grandfather’s eldest son. From those notes I also know that my grandfather William Soosoong Fong came to Melbourne (in 1901) from Zhōng Shān or Chung Shan 中山 in the Pearl River Delta region, in the district of Hao Chung and the Tai Tung Heung.

I am a recently admitted member of CAFHOV and as luck would have it, at the very first meeting, one of the other members present was able to link me to family, and I have learnt that they have travelled to China to visit other Fong relatives.

Robyn

I have been researching my family history since the early 1990s. My mother used to mention aspects of both her Irish and Irish/Chinese family backgrounds but her knowledge was minimal. Her grandfather was a naturalised Chinese butcher called Ah Whay who lived in Maryborough Victoria in the nineteenth century. His wife was born at the Black Lead Chinese Camp in Creswick Victoria to Bridget Delahunty and Hin Yung. The latter was variously an opium dealer, storekeeper, pig dealer and miner.

I have a chapter on Chinese-Australian family history in – Secrets, Silences and Sources: Five Chinese-Australian family histories, 2005. The book can be obtained by mail directly via the CAFHOV website or from the Chinese Museum shop in person.

My sources are the usual mix of newspapers, public records and relevant publications. As the decades flick by, my innate fascination with the past, the thrill of occasionally placing an ancestor within it and the increasing access to sources strengthens my drive.

Photographs from Robyn’s Whay family can be seen online at the Chinese-Australian Historical Images in Australia (CHIA).

Sally

My interest in family history was sparked by my sister who was an amateur genealogist and had a particular interest in our Chinese family history. I have focussed on my English side for some time but have recently reignited my passion for researching my Chinese immigrant ancestors.

I have two different male ancestors who arrived in Melbourne from Canton. My great great grandfather Leung Mang Yee arrived in Victoria in the 1850s and operated a greengrocers shop in Melbourne’s Lonsdale Street before moving out to High Street in St Kilda. There he branched out and his greengrocers shop also became a “cookshop”. Leung, or George as he was known, was first in line at his local polling station to vote in favour of Federation in 1900.

Leung Mang Yee’s half-Chinese daughter Linda Marion then married another Chinese immigrant, my great grandfather Frank Young Harm Goong. Together they operated a laundry in St Kilda. Linda kept up the Laundry business for several years on her own after Frank’s death from tuberculosis in 1912.

Unfortunately, my Chinese ancestors did not leave a trace of their original names in Chinese which is making my search for their origins difficult. What I have found out so far I have pieced together from birth, death and marriage certificates, newspaper articles, rate books, electoral rolls and business directories. I am hoping I can find out more about these interesting and resilient people who form part of my DNA. What were their lives really like? Where did they call home? More discoveries await….

Sarah

After interning at the Museum of Chinese Australian History, I became intimately interested in the local histories of Chinese people in Victoria. This is something that had never really engaged me despite being Chinese-Australian myself. In 2022 I took up postgraduate research in historical studies, and now explore Chinese involvement in the China Famine Relief Fund of 1878. My interests lie in transnational disaster relief practices and subjective experiences of disaster from afar, inspired by my mother’s experience of the initial outbreak of the Coronavirus and the sudden lockdowns in Wuhan, which is her hometown, while we lived together in Melbourne.

CAFHOV allows me to not only connect with other historians exploring the identity and legacy of Chinese Australians, but also to be close to the passion, inquisitiveness, and detective-like persistence of others with personal roots to unearth and family stories to tell. It’s honestly the fuel that keeps me going when my studies seem overbearing, and workshopping other members’ projects inspires me to conduct oral histories with my own mother and family while I still have access to living memory.

Sheryl

Although I live in Western Australia (born and bred) and have a large family history on both my parents sides in WA and Victoria,  my Chinese heritage is focused in Ballarat, Victoria. 

My 2nd great grandfather James Ah Chan, born 1836 in Sui Wei, China, married Mary Nealon (born 1838 in Limerick, Ireland) in 1869 in Scarsdale, Victoria.   At the time of this marriage Mary was a widow having previously married a John Houston in Ballarat East in 1855.  He was a Chinese who on being baptised took on the name of James Houston (1828 – 1865).  They had 5 children

James Ah Chan and Mary also had 5 children including my great Grandmother, Rosina Jane Ah Chan.   Rosina married a Chinese named James Kum Hor in 1893 in Ballarat.  He was 20 years older than Rosina.  They had one child, my grandmother Olive Rosetta Kum Hor in 1894 in Ballarat East.

Great grandmother, Rosina and grandmother Olive ended up in Western Australia early in the 1900’s where Olive married Royce Leslie Campbell in 1915.   Although he was born in Labertouche, Victoria his parents and their families were from Ballarat.   I wonder if they knew each other from Ballarat.

I have researched these families for a number of years and have some great information.  Now it is time to really focus on my Chinese ancestors in more depth.   I do have James Kum Hor’s Chinese characters (he signed on his marriage certificate) and I would like to follow this link further.    There was quite an extended family in Ballarat with suggestions of cousins, aunts and uncles some of which I know about, others yet to be researched.   Other names of interest in the Ballarat area include Lee Kee, Lee Soon, Young

My DNA results suggest I have a reading of 22% Chinese.  I am thrilled that I have been able to find out so much about my Chinese heritage to date as it answered so many of my childhood questions.  But, there is more to be learnt I’m sure.

When in Melbourne recently I attended a presentation at the GSV on Australian-Chinese in Victoria and that is where I heard about CAFHOV.   I must come to Melbourne more often – there is plenty for me to do.

Sophie

I’m involved with CAFHOV because I believe that the research of Chinese-Australian family historians contributes depth and texture to Chinese-Australian history. My interest in Chinese-Australian history started with fond memories of visiting David Wang’s Chinese Emporium as a child and wanting to know more about the history of Melbourne’s Chinatown. Stories of ‘ordinary’ Chinese Australians and the ways in which Chinese migrants have built lives and families to become an integral part of Australian life continues to interest me.

I’ve worked with a wide range of historical source material, and have a familiarity with current scholarship in the field of Chinese-Australian history. One of my research focuses is the history of Melbourne’s Chinatown area and in particular the people and businesses which made the eastern end of Little Bourke Street a ‘Chinese’ space in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I also have an interest in Chinese-Australian family photograph collections and what they can tell us about how Chinese-Australians wished to be seen.

Sophie’s web site has more information about her work and publications.

Terry

Terry is a first generation Chinese Australian. As an adult he developed a curiosity about the unspoken lives of his Cantonese speaking parents. Both migrated to Australia during difficult times, personally and historically. Terry’s family research has helped shape his persona and identity. He continues to research and discover details about his ancestors and his extended family, not only for his personal satisfaction but also for future family generations.

Wayne

My family history research project is the “Lamson Family of Cheshunt”. This is the history of an early Chinese Settler Henry Lim Son (Lamson). Records show that he arrived in Sydney from Canton in 1853. His story was one of hard work and migrating to where opportunities were. He worked as a labourer around Sydney till 1863, and as a cabinetmaker at Braidwood in 1864. He married Mary Ann Morby in 1864 in Braidwood NSW.

He moved to the Buckland goldfields and he was a miner, carpenter and carter there from 1865 to 1870. He was a market gardener at Tea Garden Creek in the King Valley for the next few years and then he finally settled as a farmer at Cheshunt further up the valley from 1874 until 1903.

I was able to assemble his life in the colonies through public records, land records and newspapers gave me great insights, but I had difficulties tracing his home village and his time in China.

It is a delight to share, discover and learn with the CAFHOV team. Through the help from everyone in the group, we understand his name was 林 Lam 信 Seon 名 Ming in Cantonese, surname Lam. We are now exploring different ways to find his connections in China, and potentially find our ancestry village.

The associated names of my research include Morby, McFarlane, Burrows, Ah Shin, Hardy, Stewart, Benson, Colson and Roach.

Yvonne

Yvonne has a professional background in teaching primary and secondary education. She has worked as Education Officer at Sovereign Hill and Ballarat Fine Art Gallery for many years and is presently undertaking a PhD at Federation University to research three generations of her Chinese connection with the Tong Way family from sojourner to settler generations. Her great grandfather was Reverend John Tong Way, the last Superintendent Presbyterian Minister to the Chinese of Ballarat and district who retired in 1949 at 87 years.