Here is the summary of my research
Source: http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/214Traditions11966.html
Family tree is a special cultural legacy of China, being one of the 3 important documents (history of the nation, local chronicles and family tree) of Chinese nation. Family tree is a precious human culture document, which is irreplaceable for the further study of history, folkloristic science, demography, sociology and economics.
The Origin of Family Tree
According to the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells, bronzes, stones and other early inscriptions of China discovered, the history of family tree can be traced back to before Qin period at the latest. The officials of history wrote Generation Book – on Emperors in Zhou dynasty. The Generation Book written before Qin Dynasty has already been lost, and the one we are reading today is written by people in Qing dynasty. However, from the menu we can see that Generation Book has concluded all the family trees of emperors, kings and chancellors from Huang Emperor Period to Spring and Autumn Period, being a general pedigree chart of the comprehensive blood –related groups of previous and contemporary times.
The Form of Family Tree
Before written
oral family tree, knotting family tree
Other forms
mount chart (common people, merchants, rich families)
book-bind (bureaucrat families)
The Contents and function of Family Tree
The function of Family Tree changes from the past to now:
evidence of blood relationship (inheriting of title & property), content was simple, instruction of lineage -> Wei, Jin Dynasty, the chosen of officials and marriages based on family status, contents become more -> Song Dynasty, worship of ancestors and harmonizing the relationship of family members, popular among common people
The content of a family tree includes mainly 3 parts:
1) chart of lineage -> describing the generation and father of clan member
2) the main text -> name, title, father, generation, time, post, title of nobility, life time, posthumous name, marriage and so on of each member.
3) appendix
The order of generations is set in some family trees when they are being made. The generations are marked ahead of time. This is called “generations order” in folklore, which is actually assigning priority according to seniority. Because of the value the male child only formed by history, a character decided in advance has to be one of the characters of the “full name” of a male. This character should be in the middle or the last of the three characters of the name. The generations may be different, but the rule is accepted through common practice.