China Biography

A biography is a history of a person’s life. A biography may give you birth, marriage, and death information and the names of parents, spouse, children, or other family members. Use the information from a biography cautiously because there may be inaccuracies. You can locate individual or family biographies in the Surname Search of the Family History Library Catalog.

Thousands of biographies have been gathered and published in collections of biographies, sometimes called biographical encyclopedias or dictionaries. Usually these include only biographies of prominent or well-known Chinese figures.

Look in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:

CHINA - BIOGRAPHY

Biographical sketches are found with other material in the 1913 publication Chinese in Hawaii (FHL film 1208497, Item 9). The Southern Alameda County Chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans, 466 South 5th Street #2, San Jose, CA 95112, presently has a biographical project in progress.

Currently, oral history is very much in vogue, but it is hard to document such histories. Chinese historical societies and university-level Asian American Studies departments have been involved in oral history projects to capture this information. These are particularly valuable where interviewers have been able to talk to some in the past who is now deceased.