Study On Mu Family Genealogy

From ancient to modern times, Chinese people attach great importance to theirfamilies. It is called clan culture, which has its own system and mode. The mostimportant recording data is genealogy. Genealogy, also called the family trees, is aspecial form of book in China. It is a kind of chart book, which record a bloodrelationship as the main body, including the family development history, importantdeeds and so on. Genealogy is the root of all Chinese descendants. We can find ourprogenitor from it. Moreover, Genealogy is a kind of family history documents; it hasunique value for us.Actually, in China, the concept of Genealogy formed later, but the research historycan be traced back to the Primitive Society. From the1930s to the liberation of china,Chinese scholars begin to study in genealogy which headed by Pan Guangdan, LuoXianglin. At that time, Genealogical research is still in the initial stage. It means thestudy is mainly concentrated on the macroscopic field and there are a few researchers.In the ’50, s there is no strong academic atmosphere in the newly established China, soin the early thirty years the Genealogy Research progress trend is sporadic. Thirtyyears later, Chinese scholars begin to study around the excavation, arrangement andusage of genealogy. At the same time, many areas begin to compile the genealogycatalogue. And because of the prosperity of the study, our country starts to pay moreattention to rebuilding the genealogy. The author’s birthplace is Shandong, which areais always attaching great importance to family inheritance and continuation,especially the Confucius clan is famous all over the world. Except the dark period of"Cultural Revolution of China”, Genealogy Compilation Committee and genealogydocuments exist in most parts of China.Based on the research achievement of predecessors, the author intends to from themicroscopic views, which focuses on the analysis of genealogical literaturedocuments value. From the structure of family genealogy, the integrated genealogypreface is essential. There are many literature types or forms of Genealogy preface, which rich in contents, and full of writing sparkles. In this way, Genealogy conformsto the idea of literature research values. In addition, genealogy also contains funeralorations, inscriptions, memorabilia, odes, and celebrity works and so on, all of whichare valuable for literary studies. There is an old saying goes that,“Literature andhistory come from one way”. What it is say in addition to the irreplaceable literaturevalue, the historical value of genealogy is extremely high as well.Genealogy records a large amount of magnificent historical formations, includingthe clan system, ethics standards, the institution of marriages, birth and death timeprobability, the cemetery and estates quantity etc. There is no doubt these data isirreplaceable for history, folklore, sociology and economics. Learning from the basictheory of genealogy, this thesis takes the local famous one--"Mu’s Genealogy” as theresearch objects, combine Chinese traditional value to the study to analyze something.Moreover, the purpose is drawing the comprehensive and microscopic conclusions todevelop the usage and inheritance of the genealogy especially in the literature field.This thesis is mainly divided into the following parts: The first part, summary andanalysis on the present situation and development of genealogy. This part covers thecategory, development status, and the definition of genealogy and the significance ofthe research. The second part, through the analysis of genealogy foundation theoryand under the framework of the basic knowledge, this part will analyze the studytarget--" Mu Family Genealogy” comprehensively. It mainly includes the origin ofMu’s surnames and distribution of family population situations, the written socialbackground of Mu’s genealogy, the style forms and compiling principles of familygenealogy. The third part, it will summarize the interdisciplinary values, which mainlyincluding the literature value, education value, cultural inheritance of literary valueanalysis and so on. The fourth part, after a comprehensive analysis of Mu’s genealogy,this part aims to point out limitations of Mu’s genealogy. From the Angle of the usageof genealogy and cultural inheritance this thesis will be analyzed.At last, this thesis mainly uses the methods as following: literature analysis, fieldinvestigation, questionnaire survey and some other scientific methods. Before thewriting, reading a large amount of basic data is necessary. In addition, travelling to Qixia and Zhang Dongyi to do some field surveys is quite helpful. In the text finally,this thesis should explore the vast values of Mu’s genealogy, especially in the aspectof literature, inheriting and literary. In the finally of this thesis, it should put forwardconstructive suggestions to make some continuation to genealogy compilation works.