THE STACK OF computer printouts at the Kowloon temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands about half a metre high. At the bottom of the pile is the first name listed, Zeng Mo-zhe, born about 1392. Next is Zeng's brother, Yuan-hui, born about two years later. Xu shi ('wife of Xu'), born in 1904, is the last listing. According to ancient Chinese genealogical conventions, her first name isn't necessary because she is a woman.
Danny Chin, Asia manager for the Genealogical Society of Utah, a branch of the church, is getting a first glimpse of these records, which he estimates contain the details of more than 12,000 people, from about 1,000 families - including most of the Zeng clan for those five centuries.
'This is cool,' Chin says. The records list death dates and also, starting in the 16th century, birthdays as well as birth years. 'This is amazing. This is prime data for sociologists because you can use this to see lifespans.'
The woman responsible for bringing this detail to light is Sheila Hsia Zeng Shao-ngo, 78, a descendant of those early Zengs. A member of the church and a Hong Kong native who now lives in Toronto, Hsia brought the documents to the Kowloon temple in 1997 so they could be digitally recorded and archived. The records represent only a fraction of the information about her lineage that Hsia has stored at her Toronto home - tracing 173 generations back almost 5,000 years, all the way to one of the first Chinese emperors, Huang Di, born in 2697 BC. Hsia hopes to bring the rest of the records to Hong Kong for archiving.
'Chinese people usually trace their genealogy back to Huang Di,' says Chin. 'But then for 1,000 years, they have only about 10 or 20 names to connect the whole lineage.' He says only about 5 per cent of the genealogies he's seen trace back, generation by generation, to 2,000 BC, but 'it is not common to be so detailed'.
The gathering and preserving of the genealogy represents a 25-year odyssey for Hsia, a vital-looking woman with a wide smile.