Some Vietnamese families traditionally kept meticulous annals that recorded ancestor’s achievements and maps of ancestral tombs.

Retracing your family’s roots would be far easier, if your ancestors had managed to maintain the family annals through the centuries. This practice started out as a ritual for royalty in the 6th century and much later became customary for members of the royal court, and eventually commoners, too. But it would be rare that any family is in possession of centuries-old annals today.

Naturally Vietnam’s long and battle-hardened history means that most annals were lost over time; destroyed or lost during a battle or forsaken in times of poverty. But of late, writing annals has swung back into fashion. Many families now have the time and the money to visit ancestral homes and maintain their ancestor’s tombs. Recording what they know about the family history is another part of the process of ancestor worship.

It is in a sense a map to each Vietnamese person’s spiritual world. But not many families are fortunate enough to have meticulously maintained family annals that stretch back over 700 year like Pham Quang Ky, who claims that his family annals contain information on 24 generations of his family. He carefully opens a weighty tome while explaining how his family emerged from Hanoi’s Dong Ngac commune during the Tran Dynasty (1225-1400) along with three other clans: Phan, Do and Nguyen.

According to Ky, the commune was well regarded for producing numerous talented and high-ranking officials that served the royal court. Of the 82 doctoral stone steles in Hanoi’s Van Mieu (The Temple of Literature), 21 honour people from Dong Ngac. “Of those 21, nine belong to the Pham clan,” says Ky with great pride.

The family clan’s annals states that nine people in the Pham clan’s history passed pre-court competition examinations and many other people passed doctorate-level royal examinations held from the time of the Mac dynasty (1527-1592) to the Nguyen dynasty (1802–1945). “These annals have been kept carefully for several hundreds of years. It is opened only during festivals or death anniversaries of those mentioned in the annals,” Ky says.

Ky’s house is also a place of worship dedicated to Pham Quang Trach (1653-1716), who came second in an doctoral examination in 1684 before serving King Le Hy Tong (1676-1704) in the royal court. There he helped the king map out policies for socio-economic development and earned the honour of acting as the king’s envoy on a trip to China to seek peaceful and friendly relations between the two nations.

When Pham Quang Trach died the king honoured him with a grand funeral possession – according to the annals two elephants carried his coffin to the graveyard. In the annals of Ky’s family, his ancestors have also left leave advice for the following generations: “You must respect your grandparents and parents. You must work diligently and study day and night to be as useful and successful as your ancestors. You must also always do good turns for other people.

Thus, we ancestors will be happy and happiness and prosperity will come to you.” Besides recording the clan’s history and outlining the family tree, family annals traditionally included maps of where the ancestors’ tombs were built. Today many family clans in Vietnam have similar annals documenting the clan’s achievements and places of burial. In this way annals help maintain a spiritual bridge from the past to the present times.

“A family’s annals are like a nation’s history. These annals help future generations understand their ancestors and feel pride in their family’s past,” Ky says. In Oriental culture, the history of annals goes back some 3,000 years. According to historians, annals had appeared in Viet civilisation by the time Ly Nam De (544-548AD) came to power. However, it was not until the 9th century that annals officially appeared in order to record heroes’ exploits and the nation’s military successes.

Annals were often written by mandarins of the royal court. The Ly Dynasty’s annals, titled Hoang Trieu Ngoc Diep, were compiled in 1026AD. Later on, mandarins began recording their own family’s annals and the custom slowly spread. The annals should be consulted when naming a newborn child as according to custom, a child must not have the same named as an ancestor. Also, as a daughter will become a child of her future husband’s family, her name will not be recorded in her birth family’s annals.

Fully aware that most families’ annals were lost over the course of history, Ky is extra determined to keep his family’s precious documents safe. “We must uphold our family’s tradition. Whenever my children have free time, I often ask them to read our annals so that they can remember what our ancestors did for the village and the nation,” says Ky.

“Vietnamese say ‘When we drink water, we must remember its source’. So I think the keeping of annals is also a way to keep the discipline of the clan and encourage children to study as well as to remember our ancestors’ achievements.”

VietNamNet/Time-out