Patrick Cheuk and family – 2021
L-R, Back row: Sons – Eliot Justin, Chaim Jason, M Joshua,
L-R, Front row: Patrick, Maria, Kaytlyn (wife of M Joshua)
Having a shared family tree is a brilliant way to meet people you would never have been able to meet any other way. FamilySearch.org operates under the philosophy that it is better to work together on one shared tree, rather than having everyone build and maintain their own pedigree chart. (As you do in Ancestry.com)
While some people find it disconcerting to realize that people can make edits to the records of people you have entered into the tree, there are many fail safes in place (like the ability to review changes and restore previous versions of a page) that keep things from getting permanently messed up.
For me, the advantages far outweigh the risks of someone introducing mistakes into a record. For one thing, this feature has enabled me to link my relatives to deceased relatives quickly and easily. It doesn’t take long to realize that with the contributions of many others, you are connected to far more information than you could ever have gathered yourself.
Another spectacular benefit is the possibility of getting to know distant relatives who live on the other side of the world. That has happened to me a number of times, and it is such a rare privilege to find people who share a common ancestor. In one special case, Patrick Cheuk, we actually had the opportunity to meet face to face in Provo, Utah. Never expected such a thing to ever take place! Here’s how that happened.
Finding Patrick Cheuk
On March 7, 2021, I received a private message in my familysearch.org account. It read:
Hi Susan, my name is Patrick Cheuk from Hong Kong. While searching in FamilySearch I found this name which is identical to the name of my great great great great grandfather. They both have the same birth place and date of birth is almost the same. Your ancestor had a son named 卓宏，my ancestor had a son named 卓齊宏. You probably know that Chinese at that time used more than one name to represent their different roles in life. I was wondering if you would be willing to share more information about 卓開。If they are truly the same person, it would be answer to my prayers. My wife and I are currently serving a humanitarian mission in China. We will finish our mission and return to Hong Kong in April. Best regards Patrick Cheuk
I replied with information about the data he found on my tree.
Hi Patrick thank you for reaching out. It sounds pretty promising to me that this is a match. I have been working since Jan 2019 with an LDS genealogist who is expert in Chinese research. She lives in Taiwan, and traveled to our village in Guan Tang to retrieve our records and then entered them into FamilySearch for me since I do not speak or read Chinese. I have sent your message to her and asked her to help verify the connection if possible. Her name is Louise Skyles. She may be reaching out to you to get more information. Looking forward to all of this unfolding. Where in China are you serving? Before you leave China, you may want to visit the village and meet with the amazing Zhuo Bing Quan who was the main person who rebuilt the Guan Tang Zhuo jiapu.
Hi Susan, thank you for the response. I would love to hear from Louise. We are in Shanghai. We will finish our mission in 10 days. My wife and I had visited the village before our mission and talked to Zhou Bing Quan. We are planning to go back to talk to him. Regardless, I think you and I are related 😊. We will come to the US this summer to see our boys, one of them studying at BYU. If you are in Utah or Idaho, we will come meet you if you don’t mind.
Common ancestor: Chock Liu Cheng
Patrick then was able to exchange emails with Louise, and she identified our common ancestor.
His name is Chock Liu Cheng, born around 1428, who had two wives. Patrick descends from one of his wives (Lu Shi) and my family descends from his other wife (Tang Shi).
Meeting in Person
(This section has been updated with additional details from Patrick — 17 August 2021)
On July 27, 2021, I had dinner with Patrick and his wife, Maria, and their middle son, Eliot (aka EJ). It was absolutely thrilling to meet them in person, and share family stories. After dinner, Patrick and Maria came to my home in Provo and we continued sharing stories. I showed them some of the books I have that contain some of the history.
Top, L-R – Susan, Patrick and Maria Cheuk, Galen Chock,
Bottom, L-R – Louise Skyles
At 8 pm MTN, we held the Zoom call with Galen Chock (my brother) who joined from his home in Denver, Colorado, and Louise Skyles, who joined from her home in Taiwan. It was a wonderful hour of sharing research miracles, and so many things that have contributed to the success Louise has had in obtaining records for us.
Patrick explained what led him to look at his family history in March, which was how he discovered all the extra information Louise had entered for us. He said:
For many years I was looking for the village, my father’s birthplace, in a county in Zhongshan which is about a 3-hour drive from Zhuhai. When Maria and I went to visit our friend in Zhongshan three years ago, I told her about my attempts to locate the village. She said she would talk to some friends in the government to see what they could find. Only a week later she called us with good news. What happened was, the Guangdong provincial government had realigned the county boundaries in Zhongshan many years ago and as a result, Guan Tang is now located in Zhuhai instead of Zhongshan. That’s why my attempts to find Guan Tang in Zhongshan was fruitless for many years. The Lord always provides a way if we do all we can to keep His commandments, doesn’t He?
When they found out the current county name where Guan Tang is located, they were able to visit Guan Tang village and meet Zhuo Bing Quan. However, Patrick didn’t know precisely where he connected to the tree that had been rebuilt by Zhuo Bing Quan, so he was not able to identify the name of his ancestor in the Chock family temple. He just knew they were connected to this long pedigree, at some point in the 17 generations that Zhuo Bing Quan had linked together.
He said that in March 2021, he had been sitting in Church and had the strong impression that he should go look up a specific ancestor. He didn’t know why; he had been looking for a long time for the larger family tree, and only knew of seven generations. However, he obeyed the prompting and searched the FamilySearch.org tree for the name of his 4th great grandfather. To his astonishment, he found that name on my tree, but then saw that there was much more than seven generations now. (Currently we have about 90 generations in there.)
When we parted later that night, we embraced with so much joy. They are heading back to Hong Kong, where they will need to be quarantined for 14 days to ensure they did not contract COVID 19 while traveling in the US. And then soon after that, they will leave for another mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this time to Pakistan.
We expect that when they reach the end of that mission in 18 months, they will find even more ancestors will have been found and added to the family tree. This is a project that gets bigger every day!