Mongolia Genealogy and Family History

Genealogy and Family History in Mongolia is an introduction to such records and can be found in the Proceedings of the World Conference on Records - 1980, Vol 11. (929.1 W893 1980)

In Asia, probably no nation or people can match the Chinese in the field of genealogy and family histories. In contrast, the Mongols, whose way of life was pastoral-nomadic and whose writing system did not develop until 1204, could not maintain such excellent records as their neighbors. However, because of the basic dynamic of Mongolian society and their strict exogamous marriage system, they kept a purity of blood lines in their clan-lineages and preserved their genealogy with great care. It was memorized and transmitted orally by the elders to their youth from generation to generation. The first dependable recorded source of this type of oral genealogy is the well-known Secret History of the Mongols, written in the 1240s in the Mongolian language.

As for Mongolian family history, some of the old elite families had historical records but these records were uncommon among the illiterate common people. Nevertheless, the oral tradition of nomadic heritage continued, according to which the elders faithfully remembered by heart the stories and genealogy of their own family. Unfortunately, from the 1920s, because of the Communist revolution, this precious oral tradition with its associated memories has declined.

From a recent Dick Eastman newsletters comes this:

The genealogy of a Mongol family related to the descendants of the great Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan has been included in China's list of ancient archives. The eight-meter-long (24 feet) document of Tulin Gujen's family lists 14 generations with over 1,900 Mongols, most of whom served as high-ranking officials, from 1635 to the early 1900s, said Zhao Yunpeng, deputy head of the Liaoning Provincial Archives.

The genealogy, reportedly the largest ever found, is kept at the archives of Harqin Left Wing Mongolian Autonomous County, west of Liaoning Province, northeast China.