Finding my Chock cousins

by | Apr 13, 2024 | Family Members, Hanalei

The year 2022 has turned out to be a tremendous year of connecting with Chock cousins. I originally created this site specifically for the purpose of finding my cousins. I thought that perhaps the children or grandchildren of my father’s siblings might someday Google for their grandfather, Chock Chin, or the Chock family of Hanalei, or some other keyword that would find this site and lead them here where they would find my contact info and, well, contact me.

Unfortunately, there were a few attempts that got caught in my spam filter. (I have heard that Bob Chinn tried at one point, and Edward Chock may have tried as well, but got no reply from me because I never saw their emails.)

But this year was different.  On July 12, 2022 I got an email that began:

Aloha Susan and Galen,

My name is Susan Chun—my grandmother, Ardith Lam (née Annie Chock) was a daughter of Chock Chin, and I was raised in Hawaii on tales of old Hanalei shared by Auntie N.C., grandma, and Uncle Wilfred. Auntie N.C. and Auntie Janet were working with the Chars on The Chock Chin Story—which was distilled into the Chock Chin chapter of the Chinese Families of Kauai—when I was in grade school, so life in Hanalei was a constant topic of conversation at family gatherings.

Anyway, I stumbled upon the Chock Chin of Hanalei website today while trying to remember which logogram was the correct one for our Chock family. What an unexpected bonanza of information, quite a lot of it new to me and my family (direct descendents of Chock Chin and my Kauai Apo in our branch include the aforementioned Ardith Lam; my mother, Jo-Ann Lam Chun, an only child; and my brother James (Kimo) Chun and myself. Thank you so very much.

This was the realization of the dream. A cousin actually found my website, and found me, and wanted to connect!

Susan Chun and I traded emails loaded with lots of information, and made plans to get together on our upcoming trip to Hawaii in October 2022 (which we had been planning for several months with our daughter’s family).

So in October 2022, we were able to meet in Honolulu with Norman, and with Susan and her husband and many descendants of Chock Chin’s immediate family. I’ll write more about Norman in a separate post, but let’s start with my Grandpa Chock Chin’s descendants.

Jo-Ann Lam Chun, Susan Chock Salgy, Jim Chock, October 2022, Honolulu

 

Back row, L-R:
As if that weren’t enough, on August 30, 2022 I got an email that began:

Aloha Susan,

My name is Norman Kwai Cheong “Kaleomokuokanalu” Chock and am a great grandson of Chock Chin (Lung Sin) of Honolulu. Our branch of the Chocks broke off from the Chock Chin (Tʻo Hsien) seventeen generations and about 600 years ago with our common ancestor, Chock Zu Gui / Tsu-Kuei / Hsin-Ts’un (卓祖貴), great grandson of Chock Fung. Iʻve been working on our family tree since 1970 and was able to get 97 generations of my Hawaiian ancestry but was not able to get beyond five generations of my Chinese ancestry until about two months ago when I discovered your website plus another where someone had gotten access to the family tree info for my great-grandfather.
This remarkable email went on to include a detailed spreadsheet in which Norman had been steadily capturing the pedigree information about several related branches of Chock families living in Hawaii. A retired schoolteacher with a lot of technical skills, a deep passion for family history, and incredible persistence, Norman has created a wide network of Chock relatives, and has been introducing them to me and Louise so they can get connected into this long-missing Chock pedigree.
As it turns out, Norman knows cousin Natalie professionally — they worked together in the Honolulu public school system. When I mentioned to the family at our reunion party that I would be meeting with a Norman Chock, Natalie said she knew someone by that name. I showed her picture to him when we met for lunch a few days later.  The connection with Norman and Natalie and others in our family turned out to be even deeper than they realized.
Norman’s great-uncle Wah Chan Chock and Wilfred Chock — my uncle, and the father of Jim Chock and the grandfather of Myles and Natalie Mun — were the co-founders of the Chock’s Radio Store in Honolulu, which was a well-known radio and radio parts store for many years.  Norman compiled several directory listings showing their joint ownership, and the point at which Wilfred left the business and began working on the radio equipment of the Army and the Police Department.