About

The internet has given us an unprecedented ability to generate, store and transmit all kinds of information. And for once, we do not need to carve out stone tablets or write on papyrus to be stored in desert caves. The cost of putting information on the Internet in 2021 is even less than on a piece of paper, and this has possibly resulted in more harm than good. Individuals and organizations have generated all variations of their own truths and falsehoods and published it on the Internet. So much so that these days, it is difficult to tell what is true and what is not. Yet the most important information that any person can possess, is left out there to be forgotten with time. That information is about our family, our ancestors without whom we would not be here today.

The goal of this application is to provide a site that can centralize information about family members and ancestors so that if you want to find information about your family, or other people, you know where to go. Information can be stored anywhere on the Internet but that would mean that each site would be isolated from the others, would require the site to be designed from scratch, would require similar but separate resources to maintain the sites, periodic updating etc.. This side provides a simple interface to input and store data on family members. This data would include images and media with accompanying text as in a typical blog. The purpose of This application is to encourage and retain all kinds of information on family members, because whether these are old-wife tales or deeds shrouded in history, it is important to the family to hold on to them. And who knows? Some day, we may even find long lost family members or branches through those.

I have a personal reason why I need a site like this. My father had many siblings and some of those siblings have large families scattered all over the country. On top of all that, there is little information about my grand father's generation who mostly migrated out of China before World War 2. Having a site like this would make it possible to slowly build the ancestral tree as we receive more information. The ability of Internet technology to keep such data stored means that the data will always be there. More importantly, I will not forget my family.

Yet this concept is not really new. Chinese communities maintain ancestral temples for hundreds if not thousands of years in which were stored records of past members as well as generational information. To the right is an image of an ancestral hall taken from Wikipedia. "An ancestral shrine, hall or temple (Chinese: 祠堂; pinyin: Cítáng or Chinese: 宗祠; pinyin: Zōng Cí, (Vietnamese: Nhà thờ họ), also called lineage temple, is a temple dedicated to deified ancestors and progenitors of surname lineages or families in the Chinese tradition. Ancestral temples are closely linked to Confucian philosophy and culture and the emphasis that it places on filial piety." Much of these temples were lost during the tumult of the 20th century but 21st century technology gives us the ability to build the modern day equivalent of these temples. Not for worship, but so we will not forget.