Contracts and Other Old Documents as Sources for Family History and Genealogy in Taiwan

Shih-Chang Wang

Born in Taiwan. Resides in Taipei. Researher, Comittee for Taiwan Historical Studies, Association for Asian Studies. Author, Historian.

PRIVATE OLD FAMILY DOCUMENTS COMMONLY SEEN IN OLD TAIWANESE FAMILIES

Old family documents are important materials for compiling family histories and genealogies. They are also primary sources for local and national histories written by genealogists and historians. Approximately fourteen types of old family documents can be commonly seen in old Taiwanese familes. They include:

Official Announcements and Documents

These include imperial edicts, announcements, notices, decrees, documents concerning the colonizing of aboriginal or border lands, directives, orders, bulletins, official announcements, medals for gentry, joint contracts and passports.

Land Contracts

These include the agreements, contracts and recipts of farms, land trading, presentation, description, exchanges and cultivation; there are generally eight types of contracts and receipts:

a. Contracts of land trading and presentation: This type of contract includes trading of plain lands, farms, gardens, unused lands, fishing ponds, "Feng Shui" (geomancy) lands, and estates.

b. Cultivation licenses: These licenses were issued by the government and allowed the license holder to explore and cultivate virgin plain land.

c. Land leases and cultivation contracts: These kinds of contracts were established between the Chinese or Ping Pu aborigines who had obtained the cultivation license and the tenant farmer. Under such contracts, the land proprietor or landlord would let the tenant farmer cultivate the unused plain.

d. Farm land and land leases: Farm land leases were established between the landlord or small farm landowner and the thenant farmer, while land leases were established between the land proprietor and leaseholder.

e. Estate appropriation and land description agreements: An agreement appropriating the estate to others for managment or defining the unclear boundary of the land.

f. Official survey certificates: After the virgin land has been explored and cultivated, the landowner would request an official survey of the land from the governement for the levy of land taxes. After the authorites had completed the survey work, a land certificate would be issued to the landwoner.

g. Land ownership certificates, land survey (measurement) receipts and land register copies: When Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese, a provisional land bureau was established in the thirty-first year of the Meiji reign (1899). In Meiji 36 (1903), the bureau surveyed the ownership of all pieces of land and put them into the survey record. Receipts and certificates of ownership were issued to the landowners who would, when necessary, apply for copies of the land receipts. In 1950, the land registration record replaced the receipt but the owner could still apply for a copy if necessary.

h. Land ownership succession registers, ownership transfer registers: During the Japanese reign and after Taiwan was restored to China, whenever the owner of a piece of land died, his legatees had to apply for the ownership succession register; for land trading, the owner had to apply for the ownership transfer register because the owner had to possess a copy of this kind of register.

Rental Taxes, Property Deed Receipts and Certificates

a. Property deed receipts and certificates were issued to people who had paid taxes to the government after they had bought a piece of farm land or real estate. The receipt or certificate carried the names of the traders, location, area, price, and tax amount of the land.

b. The primary lessor receipt: A kind of contract carrying details of the purchase and sale of the rentalships or stating the rental relationships between the primary and secondary lessors.

c. Land lease receipts: A kind of tax-levied contract carrying details of the rental relations between the secondary lessor or landlord and tenant or land lessor. A certain amont of deposit or rental was stated.

d. Farm cultivation and border land leases: A kind of tax-levied contract carryig the rental relations between a plain aborigine and a tenant farmer upon a piece of virgin land which had been appropriated to the plain aborigine by the Manchu government. A certain amount of deposit or rental was stated.

e. Miscellaneous duty receipts: These included storage duty, port duty, and transportation duty.

Documents of the Distribution and Managment of Properties

A kind of record known as a lotting document or lotting subagreement, receipt, or a will carrying details or the allotment of properties and money among members or a family.

Mortgage and Loan Documents (I.O.U.)

These include mortgages, mortgage transfers, pawns, loans, loan mortgages, and credit documents. To mortgage real estate (Tien) was to mortgage the ownership of the real estate to the creditor; the creditor was entitled to cultivate or make use of the land or to rent the land to the tenant farmer for cultivation after a certain sum of tax had been paid. To mortgage the receipts or certificates of real estate (Tai Chieh) was to pawn these receipts or certificates to the creditor so that the creditor was entitled to receive the rentals from the real estate as a kind of interest. Credit receipts were documents carrying the amount of cash being lent and borrowed without a mortgage.

Personal Contracts and Agreements

a. Bond service contracts: There were children selling agreements, son selling agreements, adoption agrrements, women selling agreements, wife selling agreements, and bondsman contracts. Son selling and adoption contracts were a kind of agreement specifying the trading of a non-relative male.

b. Children adoption and their succession agreements: Most such documents specify the adoption of a male blood relation, mostly nephews or sons of one's brother. In China this kind of relation was described as ko fang. Adoption of a male without relation was not popular in China or in Taiwan in the past.

c. Marriage agreements, marraige-into-the-wife's-family agreements, remarriage agreements, and divorce agreements: There were two kinds of marriage agreements, chein and kun. Chein was a document delivered by the male's family to the female's family; the kun was the reverse. these documents told how proud the family was of this marriage and were full of blessings, such as the hope that the couple would be on good terms forever and that they would bear lots of children. The marriage-into-the-wife's-family afreement was used when the family was without a son or when a widow took a husband. This kind of agreement had three types: a taking in, a taking out, and a taking in and then out. Almost all parties to the marriage participated in a marriage contract, which stated the conditions and terms of the marriage for both the male and female parties. Whenever a widow or divorcee remarried, there was also a marriage contract. Divorce agreements were also known as yu-shu or yu-chi agreements; they were also called li-yuan or tui-hun agreements.

d. Chu (will) tuo-ku or gaurdianship agreements, and tuo-chiao-chi agreements: The chu and tuo-ku agreements mostly related to family property taken care of by an honest relative or a friend when the heir was still young and not yet able to care for the property, or due to other reasons for which he was unable to care for his property. The will distirbuted the property of forefathers, while the gaurdianship agreement selected an honest person or relative to manage the property in order to preserve the property. When the minor grew up, the property would be returned to him. The tou-chiao-chi agreement was used when one had no offspring and requested someone else to assume the responsibility of making offerings to his ancestors.

Accusations

These included lawsuits and accusations brought when clan properties and tombs were occupied or destroyed. The division of property was included in these sentences and verdicts.

Business Contracts and Accountings

a. Trade agreements and withdrawal of shares: These included agreements establishing and dissolving partnerships.

b. Business receipts and accounts: These included accounts of revenues and expenditures and annual finacial statements.

c. Chambers of Commerce documents: These rose from the Chambers of Commerce in the tree chambers of Taiwan. After some improvements they became standardized.

d. "Acknowledging Teacher" cards: These cards were used when requesting a person to teach a vocation or skill; they were also known as yi-pang, kuan-tieh, and keui-tzu agreements.

Irrigation Aggrements and Permits

These were agreements to build and repair drains, ditches, and gutters and to decide shares of the irrigation water, fees, and tolls.

Aborigine Contracts

These included bilingual documents written in Chinese and romanized transcripts of the Ping Pu tribal language. Their contents included the cultivation of lands, mortgages, and loans and were comon in the south of Taiwan during the time the Dutch were in control of the island (1624-1662) and were used as late as Chiaching period (1796-1802).

Educational Archives

a. These were licenses to Confucian schools, hung pang (canidate papers), student papers, examination papers, permits to study in the county or prefecture Confucian schools, hung pang notices, student papers, and examination papers from the county and prefecture Confucian schools.

b. Successful civil examination essays: There were enrollment records, successful village examination essays (for chujen), seccessful royal court civil examination essays (for chiensi).

c. Teacher appaointment to charity school.

d. Letters, correspondence, and introduction of personal and official affairs.

e. Writings, poetry, and lyrical essays left by literati and scholars.

Horoscopes, Marriage Horiscopes, Selection of Dates for Marriage; Birth and Death Records

Horoscopes recorded the year, month, and day of a person's birth: they were called ming-tan. Marriage horoscopes based on the birth dates of the bride and groom were prepared before marriage to see that the bride and groom were appropriately matched. Auspicious dates were also selected for marriages, birthday parties, funerals, and the construction of houses and shrines. Some of the horoscopes recorded the birth dates of the whole clan were also known as sheng-keng records. Some recorded only the death dates of ancestors and wre called chi-chen records.

Merit Tablets, Prasing-Ancestor Records, Ancestral Offering Records, Prayer Scriptures

When a family member passed away in northern Taiwan, many families asked a Taoist priest to perform meritorious acts to help the deceased's soul pass beyond. When this was done "prayer scriptures" would be written; these were called merit records. Some were called "praising-ancestor" records and were then gathered together in a collection. Ancestral offering records recorded the ancestral properties and the schedule when each clan member was to take responsibility for the offering ceremony; they were also known as chang-huei agreements. Prayer scriptures came from seeking divine help in obtaining good luck, avoiding desaster, and seeking blessings from the Jade Emperor and other Gods.