They say it’s the world’s biggest family tree. With over 2 million of Confucius’ descendants included at a cost of 1.46 million U.S. dollars, it had better be.
Following is a teaser for a much longer article in the The Daily Mail.
JINAN—China celebrated the ending of the latest revision of its ancient philosopher Confucius’ family tree in 72 years at his birthplace Qufu City, east China’s Shandong Province Thursday, three days before his 2560th birthday.
About 1,000 people, including Confucius’ descendants worldwide, government officials and scholars, attended the celebration ceremony at the Confucian Temple in Qufu Thursday morning.
Kong Deyong, a 77th-generation descendant of the revered Chinese philosopher, disclosed the family tree covered with red silk at 9 a.m.
Kong then presented the family tree to the National Library of China, Taipei’s “National Central Library” and the Qufu municipal government.
Kong said, “Confucius’ family tree is a national treasure.” The family tree has 43,000 pages and is bound in 80 books. It records all the 83 generations of Confucius’ offspring of more than 2 million people and is believed to be the biggest family tree in the world, Kong said.
The latest revision, or the fifth revision, took 10 years to complete and cost the philosopher’s offspring more than 10 million yuan (1.46 million U.S. dollars), he said.
The new list, which includes minorities, overseas and female descendants for the first time, added more than 1.4 million names than the previous revision in 1937, said Kong Dewei, head of the family tree editorial office.
Read the full article in The Daily Mail.
My name is Thanh Duc Kong. I have a book, it records all 32 generations of my family tree live in Thai-binh, Viet-nam. Now I live in Canada. Can you help me to contact with Mr. Kong Dewei, head of the family tree editorial office? Please! Thank you very much,
Kong Duc Thanh