All of this came to a halt in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution, when traditional customs were vilified as feudal dregs. Genealogy was denounced as a bourgeois activity in which one claimed to be "better" than other citizens because of family status at birth. Family records in Buddhist temples were destroyed, and all citizens were advised to forget their ancestry and to never write it down.

While living in China in the early 1980s, I found that most of the local citizens I talked to could recite their ancestry from memory for many generations. (They could do this only for their straight paternal line, however. They normally did not memorize the names of female ancestors.) However, such conversations were usually conducted quietly when others were not within hearing distance as the government still frowned on genealogy at that date.

The political climate in China has had many changes since those days, and genealogy is once again a favored activity. The New York Times recently ran an interesting article about the resurgence of genealogy in China. Reporter Chris Buckley interviewed Mr. Chi Yugao, a resident of Chi Village, a village of 700 people in Yongkang County in Zhejiang Province. Almost all the men in Chi Village share the surname of Chi.

Mr. Chi, 51, is updating a surviving set of his clan's history so that it will cover all 30 generations from 1132 to the present. "We must never forget or shame our ancestors," he said. "They made us who we are, and we have to remember them for it. If we don't do it now, the next generation will lose the links to their ancestors."

It is an interesting story about recovering information that was nearly lost. You can read the entire article here.

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