Sino-Western Yangtze River Family Stories
Church Mission Archives Hoh/Hao (郝) Siblings from Macheng, Hubei, c.1908. Source: Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Svenska Missionsförbundet, Missionskyrkan, Personarkiv, Hedmark, Ellen, Fotografier. Every year, I present at Henry Tom’s Chinese Genealogy Conference about ways to use non-Chinese sources to research Chinese family history. The next conference will be in San Francisco on February 15 – […]
My Chinese family has deep roots at Ginling College, dating almost since its inception. First as students and then as faculty, women on both sides of my family – my grandfather’s side – the Shih family 石 and my grandmother’s side the Qian family 錢 – have been influenced by this remarkable women’s college.
Captain Plant Chongqing Legacy
The Chinese state visit was broadcast over a television set at the Yichang Crowne Plaza hotel café where I was eating breakfast. It was a stunning visual – a swarm of British dignitaries on a red carpet, flanked by men in uniform, welcoming the arrival of President Xi as he touched down at Heathrow Airport […]
Archibald Little launched Leechuan, a wooden twin-screw steamer, from Shanghai on 15 January 1898 and arrived in Chungking 9 March 1898. Though the ship required trackers upriver through the rapids and was too small for cargo, it fulfilled its mission of securing interest and funding for a new Upper Yangtze steamship – Pioneer. Little piloted […]
Captain Cornell Plant’s Glimpses of the Yangtze Gorges was published in 1921, 1926 & 1932 and originally issued to coincide with the launch of S.S. Loong Mow, the first scenic passenger cruise ship in the Three Gorges. Ivon Donnelly illustrated the book. However, Captain Plant had launched commercial and passenger steamship service through the Yangtze’s […]
China is a large country to be sure, but after 50 years of missionary service at the center of the Yangtze River in Yichang, Mary Emelia Moore – one of the most universally respected women – had encountered plenty of people, including some of the most influential. Warlord armies fought fierce battles there. The Japanese […]
Surgeon’s Report re Samuel Cornell Plant, Deceased “Samuel Cornell Plant embarked, together with Mrs. Plant & two Chinese girls on board S.S. Teiresias 23rd February 1921. “I was called to see him first on the afternoon of following day. I was told that he had been ill for a week and that he was suffering […]
The earliest account of western influence among my Chinese family is that of my great grandfather Shih Tsi-kai 石紫階. Missionary Sven Tonnquist of Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (MCCS) met him in 1899 as a Chinese language instructor in Wuchang. Over time, Shih became the mission’s first Chinese pastor at their church in Hwangchow, ordained […]
My grandfather attended University of Nanking , graduating in 1932 with a degree in physics. His career from 1932 – 1946 during the war was not fully known to us. In 2019, two unexpected sources sent documents to my email – one from China and one from England – neatly filling in the missing pieces. […]