Chinese Genealogy – Western Sources

Church Mission Archives

Hoh/Hao (郝) Siblings from Macheng, Hubei, c.1908.

_{Source: Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Svenska Missionsförbundet, Missionskyrkan, Personarkiv, Hedmark, Ellen, Fotografier.}

Every year, I present at Henry Tom’s Chinese Genealogy Conference about ways to use non-Chinese sources to research Chinese family history. The next conference will be in San Francisco on February 15 – 18th, 2026. Most participants are astonished to learn about the intersection between western archives and ordinary Chinese families at the turn of the 20th century and their value in family research. Between the 19^th and 20^th centuries, China was filled with church missions that were opened and financially supported by just about every western country, across every Christian faith imaginable. They opened schools for girls and boys. They ran bible classes and trained Chinese bible leaders.  They operated orphanages and established industrial institutes like lace-making to offer uneducated women a way to earn an income.  They also introduced western medicine, with hospitals and dispensaries.  During natural disasters such as floods or famine, they brought relief and during times of uprisings or war, they provided a safe haven. Because China was saturated with these missions and foreign missionaries documented all aspects of local life – sending photos, videos and letters to their home churches and loved ones, they are an incredible resource for Chinese genealogists.

By understanding the breadth of materials in archives – whether in the United States, Europe or Australia and New Zealand – Chinese families may be able to break through impasses in their genealogical research. The photograph above of the Hoh/Hao siblings is a terrific example of a fascinating discovery I had made about my own family in Swedish National Archives.

When my grandfather came to the United States in 1945 for naval shipbuilding training, he did not anticipate that he would remain here for the next 30+ years as a translator and reviser for the United Nations. Needless to say, he brought no family photographs from his time in China. So the prospect of finding potential images from his youth enticed me to dig into the world of church archives. I learned from a family member that his father worked for a Swedish Mission in Huangzhou, Hubei, but did not know which Swedish denomination he served. I was advised to contact Swedish National Archives in English to see if they had China mission records from Huangzhou in their collection. I heard back the next day and they confirmed the large collection of mission materials and suggested I reach out to a Swedish professor in Gothenburg who specializes in Swedish Church China missionary history. Through his research, he had come across my great grandfather Shih Tsi-kai 石紫階 and directed me to old books on the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (MCCS) China missions, newer publications of MCCS history in China and other materials from MCCS that contained family information, including one incredible family photograph from c. 1916 of my grandfather as a young boy, along with his parents and siblings.

I could see the potential family goldmine that existed in Swedish archives, and this past May, I decided to look through the collection in Stockholm. There, in the first box I reviewed, I found the above photograph of my grandfather’s mother Hao Baozhen 郝寶真 seated in the center and holding his older sister, infant Shih Gan-lin 石甘霖 . I could not believe my eyes. It was a sibling photograph that documented her relationship to accomplished educator Phoebe Hoh 郝 映 青 who is standing in the back. Many Chinese families struggle to find material about their ancestral female lineages in China. However, in Sweden, of all places, I was delighted to discover pictures of three generations of Chinese women in my family lineage.

Swedish archives yielded many incredible genealogical gifts. Some were found in physical archives like the image above in Sweden and others had been digitized and were available on-line (see below). I hope to illustrate the depths that Chinese genealogists can achieve without speaking or reading Chinese. I urge you to think about your own family’s early 20th century spiritual roots and influences and what may be waiting in archives for you too.  

Do you have mission-affiliated Chinese family members? A genealogy participant once told me she had female relatives who were teachers. I responded, “Where were they trained? Where did they teach?” Many church missions created “normal schools” which specialized in teacher training. Girls’ education was almost exclusively run by church missions in the early 20th century so if a female ancestor was educated, chances are, it was at a church mission. Other participants had nurses and doctors in their families. Church missions brought western medicine to China, built hospitals and dispensaries, so the likelihood of a church mission affiliation of a doctor or nurse, pre-civil war, is incredibly high. Other family members, like mine, may have been bible women or evangelists. Some may have received help from church missions as orphans or after great famine, floods or other natural disasters. Many Chinese genealogists are unaware of these mission connections and the vast archival sources that are available and miss incredible opportunities to dig meaningfully into the past.

Here are six examples of family photographs I have discovered using christian-affiliated archives.

1. Photo 1 – Chinese Evangelist c. 1905. My great grandfather Shi Zijie 石紫階 was the first ordained pastor for the MCCS in Huangzhou, Hubei. Swedish Archives have many images of him throughout his years of service. I also found his salary, his children’s school enrollment and records of his leadership, etc.
2. Photo 2 – MCCS Chinese Women’s Congregation c. 1905. The Hao/Hoh maternal side of my grandfather’s family were Christians and participated in Swedish mission life as bible women and teachers. My great grandmother Hao Baozhen 郝寶真 is seated in the second row on the right next to the Swedish missionary. Her mother, Hoh I-tsing, is seated to her left. Hao Baozhen’s sister, Phoebe is standing in the second row on the left next to Swedish missionary Anna Berg.
3. Photo 3 – Chinese Ginling College Graduates with Madam Chiang Kai-shek 1938 from Madam Chiang’s Women’s Conference in May. Ginling College was established in Nanjing by a consortium of American Christian missions as the first Chinese women’s college certified to grant bachelor degrees. Ginling records are located at Smith College in Northampton, MA in the United States. Many of the women in my family attended Ginling, and I now have directories with their names, photos and detailed accounts of school life through the Nanjing Massacre and the Rape of Nanjing. This photo includes my grandfather’s aunt Phoebe Hoh.
4. Photo 4 – Ginling College Graduates Class of 1920. Phoebe Hoh is to the far right and was one of seven women in the second class at Ginling College in this photograph from c. 1916. Again, this photograph is from Smith College Archives in Northampton, MA.
5. Photo 5 – Chinese Children Raised on MCCS Mission c. 1910. Swedish archives digitized hundreds of their China mission photographs and uploaded them online. I was delighted to find this incredible image of my grandfather Shih Tao-tsi 石道濟 as an infant and his older sister, Shih Gan-lin 石甘霖. Can you imagine the thrill of finding a baby picture of your grandparents in China online?
6. Photo 6 – Songpu, Hubei c. 1900. My Hao/Hoh family hailed from Songpu and rented a house to Swedish MCCS missionaries Wikholm and Johansson. In 1893, anti-Christian Chinese set the house on fire and brutally murdered both missionaries. The Hoh/Hao family fled Songpu. When I found this image in Swedish National Archives, labeled with the martyred missionaries’ names, I felt a heavy heart seeing the place my great grandmother had lived and fled. Some of her family later returned when MCCS re-established their mission presence there.