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.