Tracing the family tree back to China

Check. One off my bucket list: trace your roots.

The unnerving search for your ancestors, figuring out where you came from, and learning of what their lives were like is a surreal and intimidating experience. As much as lineage may be impressive to some, I have always undervalued its sentimental importance. When I was informed that the family was to go on a three-day trip to China to find our ancestors, it seemed rather implausible, yet so animated: the kind of adventures you only see in the movies. But in a kind of once-in-a-lifetime, let’s-do-it-before-we-die moment, my family and I flew South of China to the Fujian province to do exactly that — to figure out where our ancestors had come from.

As a part of the fifth generation in my family from the first who had moved to the Philippines (on my paternal side) from China, visiting the land where my great, great grandparents came from was humbling. While the language barrier made it difficult for me to anchor any kind of familiarity with the local people, there was a peculiar amusement in the fact that this place is supposedly where we came from.

An hour or so bus ride from the city center of Xiamen, off into the outskirts of Fujian province, we finally found the village where my great, great grandfather, Don Mariano Velasco Chua Chengco, the father of my great grandmother Febunsia Velasco once lived — a man of great position and stature, apparently. His sprawling estate — a complex of 15 residential mansions and one ancestral temple — was incredibly impressive and charming. His home, now a thriving tourist destination, contains a collection of intricate carvings and designs, striking architecture and arts and artifacts imported from many parts of the world. The mansion rests in the very quaint Zhangli Village, at the town of Guanqiao in Nan-An County.

Tracing roots: No fleeting moment of ecstatic and familiar homesickness, but I did learn a great deal about my own family’s history.

If this is where my family had come from, I surely did not feel that fleeting moment of ecstatic and familiar homeliness. This was a place, as much foreign to me as any historical place I had chanced upon in my schoolbooks. Rather well off would be an understatement: this man was powerful, and as much a stranger to me as any estranged relative would be.

And although being there — seeing it all, where we had come from — was not overwhelmingly striking, emotionally, it was incredibly interesting. Further research into our ancestors revealed that I even have distant relatives, fellow descendants with great prestige, wealth and established surnames here in the country. A little bit of an odd, crazy discovery really, like that “everyone is connected by six degrees of separation” theory. Or perhaps like that theory called the “The Real Eve,” which posits that humankind’s mitochondrial DNA can be traced back to our human Eve, a woman from Africa. It’s interesting to see how this one man’s own lineage branched out into a set of families doing “pretty well” here in the country.

Once in a while, we need to question the “great unknown” of our origins. I have never really placed much value on ancestry or family trees. It is complicated to try to connect yourself to different people from the past, often far away. On the other hand, shouldn’t we be curious about our own history? Who were the people who carried our name? What stories did they have to share? And even if no emotional connections are made during our the search, it’s amazing to see how people plant their lives at different points, in different generations, in different parts of the world, and leave lasting legacies through their names. Our last names, our family names, are powerful tools, really.

What’s in a name?: Learning the history behind our names reveals to us the people who once carried it and the stories of their lives. Who were the people who carried your name? What stories did they have to share?

Who knows where lineage will take us, many years from now? Anyway, I am glad to have at least made an attempt to figure out my own. Though the story is still unclear, tangled somewhat through the translations, I am pleased to have come to terms with building a history of my own, and visiting the home of the man who moved to this beloved country many years ago.

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Thank you, Irene Go, of Panda Travel Services for organizing our trip to China. Contact 242-2585 for inquiries on travel tours they have available.

Thank you, George Go, for the hospitality.