Our Brazilian colleague Karen has interviewed photographer Fifi Tong in her blog, we would like to share the interesting result with you. Fifi Tong has been taking pictures of large families for more than 15 years, and has now published her works in an illustrated book.

Karen: You have recently published the book „Origin – family pictures in Brazil“. How did this project start?

Fifi: The project started with a photo of my family – my grandmother, my mother, my daughter, and I are in it. We dressed up in Chinese clothes, which belonged to my grandmother. She used to wear them in China. Four generations were portrayed like that to have something to remember them by later. When I developed the camera’s film, i fell in love with the pictures and instantly thought: wow, this would be a great project. I started taking pictures step by step, and had the idea of only taking pictures of women.

With this guideline, I searched for families that had been living together over many generations under one roof, at least over three generations, but preferably over four or five generations. When I developed the film, I noticed that family members often resembled each other, and that some facial expressions are inherited. I decided to extend my options because of this genetic trait and began to deliberately take pictures of families where the similarities between family members were obvious. I also started to take pictures of men, since I had noticed that mothers can resemble sons too, as well as fathers and daughters. This is how the whole project started.

Finding families with many generations was a great challenge. It was always enjoyable to find families with five generations, but sometimes a photo with only two generations fit just perfectly, so I used it for my project as well.

Karen: How did you structure your work and how long did it take to publish the first book?

Fifi: When I took the first picture of my family, my daughter was six years old. She recently turned twenty-one, so I worked on that project for fifteen years. I am really touched, it is like watching a child grow up and develops. But of course I did not always take pictures, it was very intense at times, and less intense at others. I tried selling my book at the same time, and to make my work known. That was the most difficult thing of all: to find a sponsor, and also to wait for the Rouanets Law to come into effect.*

* Brazilian law to support the arts

Karen: How did you find the motives for your book?

Fifi – I found them hrough the people near me. For instance, there was the woman who worked for me, and her little daughter, who was very young back then – she is already eighteen today. My friends and family also always helped me, and gave me hints. Sometimes they came to me and said “I know a family from Minas Gerais with five generations, are you interested?” I then contacted the family, discussed a meeting, and got into the car and started driving. When I was there, more people that also knew large families approached me and said “I know another family with five generations, they only live an hour by car from here, would you like to go there?” And of course I went!

In the end, I had so much material, and yet so many things I wanted to do remained. I for instance learned that there are two cities in Brazil the inhabitants of which are known for their very old age when the project was nearly over: Veranópolis in RS and another city in the state of São Paulo, but I did not manage to go there anymore. There was a deadline when I got a sponsor, and you have to be able to say “I’m done!” at some point of time.

Karen: Do you think that the book is a portrait of the Brazilian family?

Fifi: Yes, I think it does. The Brazilian family is a melting pot. I myself am Brazilian, have Chinese roots, and my daughter is Brazilian with a Spanish father. Practically every Brazilian has links to the immigrants who came here to build our country.

Karen: You have Chinese roots. Have you already been to your ancestors’ country?

Fifi: Yes, my parents are from Shanghai, but I have unfortunately not been there yet. I would definitely like to make up for that, I am already planning the trip diligently. I would like to spend two or three months there, preferably with my daughter once she finishes college. My parents still speak Chinese at home, Shanghai-Chinese to be exact. I find Chinese culture to be very interesting, even though I do not know any details about it. Taking pictures there would also be a very good opportunity.

Karen: Our blog’s readers are interested in genealogy. What can you tell them about it?

Fifi: Well, I believe that photography is also an important part of genealogy. As soon as you take a picture, a moment becomes eternalized. If you take a look at a mother and her daughter, you often do not realize how similar they are. The similarities are much more obvious on a photo. One sees details that one misses in daily life. There is an example of a five-generations family in my book, five women, so different, yet so alike – one can see exactly which traits are passed on. It is unbelievable when you are able to see yourself in another person, and know what you are going to look like in old age.

The family on the title page of my book is very interesting in terms of photography. One sees how the family gets brighter skin, but keeps other character traits. The girl looks exactly like her grandpa – but he is colored, while she is blonde, with blue eyes.

I very much enjoyed meeting this family and others again when I published my book. When I took the picture of the girl on the title page, she was five years old. She was already twelve when the book came out. All of them are very proud to have been a part of this project.

I would like to create a website for my next project, so that people can send me their own photos and stories, maybe a second book is created that way.

Karen: Fifi, do you have an advice for those who would like to do something similar – take pictures of a family’s generation?

Fifi: The most important thing of course is to bring all participants together. One has to be patient thus; I had to wait a lot of times. Sometimes, grandma lives in a small village and needs help to get to an appointment, and careful planning is essential, as well as patience.

Furthermore, one should try to take advantage of favourable events, such as anniversaries. The kinfolk is present anyway at a golden wedding, so why not take the traditional picture of all relatives? I feel it is unbelievably nice to take a picture of the family. Generations do not matter that much, it is more important to eternalize the moments that are important for us.

Karen: Did you ever take another picture of the first photo you took, the one with the four generations of your own family?

Fifi: No, unfortunately not. My grandfather died in 2007. It is a pity, because the fifth generation is now on the way, my nephew will be a father. There are now four generations again.
Karen: Thank you very much fort he interview, we wish you the best of luck!

These numbers are impressive, even for experienced genealogists who have compiled a family tree of considerable size, including many generations. The family tree of Confucius, the Chinese philosopher (who is believed to be the acnestor of all those bearing the family name “Kong”), includes more than 2 million (yes, 2,000,000!) names, and stretches over 80 printed volumes.

The descendants of the Chinese philosopher Confucius have just updated their extended family tree, the last update was published more than 70 years ago. Customs in fact demand that the family tree is revised every 30 years, but the terror of the Cultural Revolution forced them to postpone the revision. Kong Ming, a businessman from Shanghai, began researching a particular branch of the family in 1998 when his grandfather showed him the coffin in which he had hidden the family’s records in order to avoid persecution during the Cultural Revolution.

Kong Ming spent more than £40,000 to restore the 800 year-old family records, and he sent out more than 100,000 leaflets and put up posters in the city of Hangzhou to restore lost links. A 16-year-old boy of British-Chinese heritage, the grandson of the clan elder, was flown in from the UK to participate in the ceremony of unveiling the updated family tree. Quite a family tree to build upon!

This interesting story was written by one of our users from Brazil, a nice read for the weekend!

Vancouver, 2:15 am: my sister is probably still sleeping, she won’t have answered yet.
Maringá (Brazil), 6:15 am: my mother will soon be awake. I hope she will soon read about the good news!
Tokyo, 6:15 pm: my brother is still at work…
Hamburg, (Germany) 11:15 am: I’m hungry!

This how Valéria describes her daily routine: always counting hours to find out what time it is here and there – did my mother have a chance to read the mail yet? Has my brother’s daughter been born already, so I can see the pictures online? Did my sister get the job? So many questions…

A family that was likely to drift apart has managed to overcome the distance and the time difference, and is still very close, against all odds. It all started when Valéria, the oldest daughter, decided to move to Germany to study, and stayed instead of moving back to Maringá, the Porto family’s home. Two years later, Fernando, the youngest son, emigrated to Japan to work at Sony as an engineer. Finally Alessandra, the second child, also left Maringá after having received a scholarship for her doctoral dissertation.

The parents, Amanda and Felizardo Porto, stayed behind in Brazil. Thy attended several classes about working on a PC and using the internet in order to stay in contact with their children. “When I left, calling Germany from Brazil or vice versa was very expensive. We discovered emailing, which was quite new back then, since the normal mail was just too slow. We only called each other on birthdays or Christmas”, recalls Valéria. Her mother, who is 65, still remembers how difficult working with a PC was at first: “I always did everything wrong, and sometimes our PC crashed, I then had to ask my neighbour for help. Roger, one of our friends, taught me how to use the PC properly then, and everything got better.”

Many Brazilian families experience globalization in a similar way. A lot of Brazilians of Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, German, or Spanish heritage try obtaining dual citizenship in order to be allowed to work in the European Union, and thousands try reaching the United States to get a chance of living the American Dream. Their families thus have no choice but to acquire new means of staying in touch.

The Porto family exchanged emails first, and then discovered social networks like Orkut, Facebook, and Xing. When they discovered the genealogy network meusparentes.com.br, they had found the ideal platform for their family. Felizardo Porto, 68 years old, retired, explains: “I can do everything in one place here: send messages to everybody, upload pictures and look at those others uploaded, receive birthday reminders, and even write a blog!”.

Besides the comfortable all-in-one way of communicating, the platform’s privacy is importat to the family. Only those family members that are invited to the common family tree can access it. Furthermore, the whole family can work at their common tree to expand it. Amanda Porto agrees: “I did not care about computers or the internet, but having everybody work on our tree really makes it exciting. I can pass on my knowledge about our family’s past, and that is very important to me.”

This story could not have been thought up any better: two men from Waldoboro (Maine) had been working together at a furniture store for some months, where they had always laughed about customers’ comments about their striking similarity. When Randy Joubert (36) finally asked Gary Nisbet (35) about some details he had prepared from his own adoption records, the scales fell from his eyes: Nisbet was not just a co-worker, but a brother!

The brothers had been separated when the state took them from their mother, due to severe negligence. They lived in neighboring towns with their adoptive families, and attended rivaling schools. But the story does not even end there: days later, a woman walked into the furniture store carrying adoption records and other paperwork, she claimed that she was the two brothers’ half sister. Joanne Campbell did know her biological mother, in contrast to her brothers, but she was never really close to her.

Joubert only gained access to the state records about his adoption and origin due to a fairly new law, which was coincidentally supported by his boss at the furniture store – former Senator Dana Dow (R).

A truly amazing story, and certainly the warm side of genealogy, as described by Alejandro Druetta in yesterday’s blog post!

Read the whole story at Bangor Daily News.

We found a story about an unusual rally in an Argentine newspaper (El Litoral) today: a man named Alejandro Druetta started a rally on a motorcycle from his home in the Argentine region of Tucumán to find all those sharing his last name – Druetta.  His goal was to complete the family’s history through finding relatives who could share their knowledge with him. He went to many cities and provinces on his journey, including Mendoza, Córdoba, Santa Fe, and the nation’s capital, Buenos Aires, to find out about his grandparents and ancestors.

Druetta, whose family is of Italian origin and once emigrated from the Piedmont region in northern Italy, describes genealogy as a science, which as such is cold, but then leads one to exploring the family history and helps to preserve the warm site – experiences, ties with ancestors, and values. He sees genealogy as a never-ending road, as each newly found ancestors and each document one acquires once again opens another door to the past.

His journey started on September 14 and will approximately end on October 9. Druetta would like to prove that there are now actually more Druetta descendants living in Argentina than in their place of origin in Italy. We wish him the best of luck – ¡mucha suerte!

Check out the whole article if you speak Spanish: click here.

There are a lot of conferences and similar events about genealogy going on at the moment, and we’d like to know if you have already attended one in this week’s poll.

We celebrated the 2nd birthday of verwandt.de, our German version, about 2 months ago: see here. Now, our Polish version, moikrewni, turns 2 as well! Moikrewni has become very popular within a short time, millions of Polish-speaking users in Poland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and elsewhere, have created their family tree online. Many of them have found relatives and ancestors abroad, and many Americans have found their Polish ancestors – sometimes without having known that they even existed!

We would like to thank all our users for contributing to our success!

We have created an overview of all surname maps available at dynastree. You will see the map automatically after logging off, and the dropdown-menu lets you select the country in which you would like to search:

There are already maps for 10 countries, and we are working on new releases steadily. These countries are already featured on dynastree: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, The Netherlands, France, Spain, USA, Canada, and Argentina.

About two months ago, the world’s oldest man, Tomoji Tanabe, died at age 113. Now, the world’s oldest woman, Gertrude Baines, who at the same time was the oldest human alive, died in Los Angeles. Ms. Baines was born in Georgia in 1894, her ancestors were brought to the US as slaves. She outlived her whole family, and became the world’s oldest woman in January, when Maria de Jesus from Portugal died. In April, Baines turned 115, and President Obama, whom she had voted for, congratulated through a letter. While enjoying a not-so-healthy diet of bacon, icecream, and fried chicken, Gertrude Baines said that she never drank, smoked, of or “fooled around”, and owed her high age to that.

The Japanese woman Kama Chinen, 114, is now the world’s oldest person.

While most genealogists research their ancestors and compile their family tree as a hobby (or, more rarely, as an occupation), the motivation of some is of religious nature.

Honoring one’s ancestors is of great importance in many cultures, and also a part of religious duty, e.g. in Shintoism (see our blog post on that), and also for the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Mormons believe that their ancestors’ salvation can be helped through baptizing them posthumously, researching their origin and identity is essential in order to do so.  The correct name, date of birth, and date of death have to be known for being able to correctly baptize the ancestor. He or she also must have passed away at least one year ago, or must have been born 110 years earlier if the date of death is unknown.

This religious duty makes Mormons very avid genealogists.