Hou Pengxiao said he had simply wanted to write something in memory of his dead parents in 1988, the year he was to retire.

It never occurred to him that the writing would take 16 years and revive a tradition that had almost died out in China.

Hou, 75, recently finished the fourth revision of his family's genealogy - one that records 14 generations of nearly 10,000 people in 13 volumes.

"To start with, I wanted to write something to commemorate my parents," said Hou from his home in Anshan City, northeastern Liaoning Province. "When I did, I tried to remember what I had been told about their parents and grandparents. In the end I became so interested in the family's history that I decided to compile a genealogy."

The job was a difficult one, he said. "I visited more than 10 villages in Anshan alone and interviewed more than 120 people surnamed Hou."

The past 16 years also saw mounting telephone bills at Hou's home. "I make hundreds of long-distance calls each year to confirm if a Hou belongs to my family tree," he said.

As members of the Hou family learned of his ambitious goal, they started to help him. Even distant relatives whom he never met readily supported him. Hou Chengkuan, an 86-year-old relation in Taiwan Province, chipped in 15,000 yuan (US$1,807) and also mailed to him everything he knew about the Hou's descendants in Taiwan.

"According to the documents he provided, four lines of the Hou's family are living on the other side of the Taiwan Straits," he said. "I felt all my hard work had paid off when I finally found out all about the generations of Hou before me. I felt I had saved the historical records of my clan."

At the top of the family tree is Hou Huayou, who moved in 1651 from his ancestral home in Leling County, eastern Shandong Province, to Anshan, where later generations of the family live to this day.

To his delight, Hou said many people around him are also interested in finding out their own roots. "Many people come to me for help when they want to work out their own family trees," he said.

A recent exhibition of genealogies drew large crowds of different age groups, said Chang Huaide of the Anshan Pedigree Culture Research Institute, a newly established organization dedicated to preserving the ancient tradition.

"More than 100 family trees were on display, all compiled by citizens in recent years," Chang said.

A family tree, or "Jiapu" in Chinese, is a book that records names and stories of members in the same clan as well as the clan's origin, relation, migration, distribution, occupation, education, economic condition and social status.

A family tree is usually revised every 30 or 60 years. The practice was thriving during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, but was halted after the founding of New China in 1949 as it was seen as a feudal vestige.

Source: Xinhua