Page 1 · The hall and its tablet卷首 堂號神位
彭城堂
Pengcheng Hall — the ancestral hall name of the Luu surname
彭城堂 劉氏堂號
One character, many spellings
The character was never romanized once, so there is no correct spelling to recover. Each version is the product of two things multiplied together: which Chinese language the family was speaking, and whose alphabet the clerk was writing in. Change either and the spelling changes with it.
此字從無定譯，故無所謂正寫。各拼法皆由二事相乘而成：其時所操何種漢語方言，其地書吏用何種字母。二者易一，拼法即異。
Not a closed list. Hakka families went to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Borneo, Malaya, Singapore, Bangka, Kolkata, Mauritius, Réunion, Tahiti, South Africa, Peru, Cuba, Panama, the Caribbean and northern Vietnam, and every one of those places had its own clerk. Under all of it sits one character — usually.
所列未盡。客家人足跡遍臺灣、香港、婆羅洲、馬來亞、新加坡、邦加、加爾各答、毛里裘斯、留尼旺、大溪地、南非、秘魯、古巴、巴拿馬、加勒比諸島及越北，各地書吏各有其法。其下所繫，多為一字而已。
What the spelling cannot tell you. In Vietnam, Lưu is also the spelling of 留 and 流: different surnames, no relation, indistinguishable once romanized. And a Kinh family named Lưu may be 劉 in origin with no Chinese ancestry at all, because Vietnamese surname stock is Sino-Vietnamese in etymology across the board. The character records where a word came from, not where a family did.
拼法所不能告者。在越南，「留」「流」二姓亦拼作 Lưu，異姓而同拼，一經羅馬字則無從分辨。又京族人家姓 Lưu 者，其字或本作「劉」而實無華裔之血緣，蓋越南姓氏之源多出漢越音也。字所記者，詞之所自來，非家之所自出。
And the hall name settles less than it appears to. 彭城 is claimed by very nearly every 劉 lineage in the south. It points at the Han imperial house, which makes it a prestige claim before it is a genealogical one. Two families both flying 彭城堂 have established almost nothing.
堂號所定者亦少。「彭城」為南方劉氏所共稱，指漢室郡望，是誇耀之辭多於譜系之證。兩家同懸「彭城堂」，所證幾無。
Ancestors are given as Luu plus their given name: the Vietnamese form where it is known, Mandarin pinyin for the earlier generations in Fujian and Guangxi. It is a compromise, and the characters remain the authority.
本錄列祖之名，姓從家用之 Luu；其名，越南讀法可考者從之，閩粵諸祖則用官話拼音。此乃權宜，仍當以漢字為準。
Pengcheng is present-day Xuzhou in Jiangsu, the ancestral seat claimed by the Luu house of the Han dynasty. Nearly every 劉 lineage in the south hangs this hall name over its altar. This register opens with it, before any person is named.
彭城即今江蘇徐州，漢室劉氏所稱郡望。南方劉姓宗祠多懸此堂號。本簿開卷先書堂號，而後及人。
Page 2 · Preface卷首 序
序
Why a family keeps a book
何以修譜
流水簿 — literally a "flowing-water register." Unlike a full genealogy that fans out to every cousin, a flowing-water register follows one line straight down, father to chosen son, the way water follows a channel. Each generation here names one man in full and lists his brothers by name alone.
流水簿者，如水行渠，一線直下，父傳一子，不似總譜之枝分派衍，旁及群從。每世詳一人，其昆弟但列其名。
Signature · The naming code字輩
字輩詩
Twenty-nine characters, one name-syllable per generation. Tap a character to jump to that generation.
廿九字，每世取一字為名首。點字可至該世。
能継振功德勝長永光祖澤奕世其芳
A generation poem is a mnemonic, not a poem meant to be read for beauty. Every male child of the ninth generation takes 宗 as the first character of his given name, every child of the fourteenth takes 賢, and so on. Meet a stranger who shares your surname, and the hall name over his altar will most likely match yours and prove nothing. Read him this sequence instead. Generation poems are branch-specific: if his line runs 福受本春積大成 too, you are looking at the same branch, and the character in each of your names tells you exactly how many generations apart you stand and which of you calls the other uncle. This, not the hall name, is what distinguishes one branch from another. It stands on page two, before any ancestor is named.
字輩詩為記世之訣，非以文采論。九世男丁名首皆用「宗」，十四世皆用「賢」，餘類推。他日遇同姓之人，其堂號多與己同，不足為據；當誦此詩相質。字輩詩各房各異：其人若亦承「福受本春積大成」之序，則同出一支，而各自名中之字，即可推知相去幾世、孰為叔姪。可辨宗支者在此，不在堂號。此詩列於卷二，先於列祖之名。
Where the sequence goes next
此後之次第
The family is using 振, 功, 德 across the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth generations. The nineteenth is being born now and is not in this book.
本族十七世用「振」，十八世用「功」，十九世用「德」。十九世方生，未及入簿。
After 德 come 勝 長 永 光 祖 澤 奕 世 其 芳 — ten characters, positions twenty through twenty-nine.
「德」以下為勝、長、永、光、祖、澤、奕、世、其、芳，凡十字，當二十至二十九世。
What happens after the twenty-ninth, the book does not say. Its only statement on the matter is the range: 一世祖至廿九世安書名列明. Where a lineage exhausts its poem, the common practice is to compose a new one rather than restart the old, but that is general practice and not something this register commits to. Some families do cycle.
廿九世以後，簿中無文。所言者惟其範圍：「一世祖至廿九世安書名列明」。詩盡而另撰新詩，乃通行之例，然非此簿所明著；亦有復用舊詩者。
Pages 2–3 · Where the water starts源流
源流
Fujian → Guangxi → the border → Vietnam
福建 廣西 邊地 越南
- before gen 1始祖 福建省汀洲府武平縣Wuping County, Tingzhou Prefecture, Fujian. Hakka heartland. The "Fifteenth Lang" style of name is a Tingzhou signature.
- gen 1–2一至二世 廣西博白縣Bobai County, Guangxi. Three brothers move down together and open the ground here — 開基立業.
- gen 9–13九至十三世 中國那良 白賴 那把Naliang, on the Guangxi–Vietnam frontier. Graves appear here from the ninth generation on, still marked 中國 in the book.
- gen 12–17十二至十七世 越南 凌溪 橫野 深江 棠花Vietnam, the Quảng Ninh border communes. 棠花 is Đường Hoa in Hải Hà district. Wives are buried across the line a full generation before husbands are, which is usually how a family actually moves.
- after 1988簿成之後 簿外The register stops here. Where the family went afterwards, and who went, it does not record.
On "Zhuji Street." Countless southern lineages record their origin at a Zhuji Lane, and the name functions less as a street address than as a shared point of departure held in common memory. Take it as the family's own account of where it came from rather than as a coordinate to be verified.
「朱基街」一節：南方諸族譜多稱祖自珠璣巷來，此名與其謂之地址，毋寧謂之眾所共記之發端。當以族人自述所自出視之，不必求諸輿圖。
What the book actually names in Vietnam. Five places: 凌溪社, 橫野社, 深江, 棠花口, 下該仔, plus 王竹田, 牛蓊州, 細冷溪, 大懶墩 and 鱗湾 as grave sites. Of these I can identify one with confidence: 棠花 is Đường Hoa, a commune in Hải Hà district, Quảng Ninh, on the Chinese border. The register puts a grave at the tea-plantation peak there, and Đường Hoa is farming and forestry ground. The rest remain open. Read as Sino-Vietnamese they would sound roughly like Lăng Khê, Hoành Dã and Thâm Giang, but I have not matched those to anything and would not want a guess standing in the record.
越南地名一節：簿中所載五處，凌溪社、橫野社、深江、棠花口、下該仔，另有王竹田、牛蓊州、細冷溪、大懶墩、鱗湾為葬地。其可確指者惟「棠花」，即越南廣寧海河縣之 Đường Hoa，鄰接中國邊境。餘皆待考，不敢臆斷。
On the Ngái. The band of Quảng Ninh districts along the frontier — Hải Hà, Đầm Hà, Tiên Yên, Bình Liêu and eastward — is home to the people Vietnam classifies as the Ngái, a Hakka-speaking group counted separately from the Hoa, whose route into the country ran from Qinzhou and Fangchenggang across the border. Researchers who have worked with Ngái households report that the two things their family records prize above all are the lineage history and the rules for naming children correctly. This book contains those two things and essentially nothing else. That is an observation about the shape of the document, not a claim about the family.
艾族一節：廣寧沿邊諸縣，海河、潭河、先安、平遼一帶，為越南所稱「艾族」聚居之地，操客家話，官方與華族分列。治其學者謂艾族家乘所重者二：一為世系源流，一為命名之法。本簿所載，正此二事而已。此就文書體例言之，非謂本族即屬其類。
On the "Lang" names. 十五郎, 八郎, 萬三郎, 念三郎, 二十一郎 — numbered lang names in place of, or alongside, formal given names are a strong marker of Hakka lineages out of Tingzhou. They fade from this register after the sixth generation, which is roughly when the family had settled in Guangxi.
郎名一節：十五郎、八郎、萬三郎、念三郎、二十一郎，以序數稱郎，為汀州客家宗族之顯徵。本簿六世以後漸不復見，約當其家定居廣西之時。
Pages 3–18 · The main channel世系正文
世系
Eighteen generations, father to son. Names in gold are the son the register follows.
十八世，父子相承。金色者，本簿所承之子。
Transcription校記
校記
What is certain, what is inferred, what could not be read
何者可據，何者推知，何者未辨
Open readings
未定之讀
- The second marginal character in the generation poem, beside 勝, reads as 或 — the 口, the horizontal beneath it and the 戈 are all clear, and 咸 and 威 fit less well. What it marks is unknown. Open against the page: whether a further character sits near it, and whether either marginal character differs from the main column in hand or ink. No photograph will answer the last.
- The preface reads 一世祖至廿九世安書名列明. 安書 does not parse cleanly and may be misread.
- Tenth generation: the shipwreck passage is the most damaged in the book. 中綸渡, 四僑 and the closing clause about 賢端公 are provisional. Neither 子手 nor 賢端 appears among the sons recorded for their generations.
- Ninth generation: Lady Liang's death date reads as the thirty-sixth day of a month, which cannot stand.
- Third generation: the closing line of the anecdote about the nameless ancestor is illegible in its last characters.
- Seventh generation: 儲贈 is not a standard formula. 誥贈 and 例贈 are, and they mean different things about how the title was obtained.
- 汀洲府 — standard usage is 汀州府. Kept as written. 朱基街 may be 珠璣.
- 字輩詩「勝」旁小字，審其口、下橫及戈三者俱全，當釋為「或」，「咸」「威」皆不相類。所註何事未詳。當覆核原書：其旁尚有他字否，及旁書二字與正文筆墨是否同出一手。末一事非影本可決。
- 序文作「一世祖至廿九世安書名列明」。「安書」二字不成文，或係誤讀。
- 十世沉船一節，殘損最甚。「中綸渡」「四僑」及末句「賢端公」云云，皆屬暫定。且「子手」「賢端」二名，均不見於各該世所載諸子之列。
- 九世祖妣梁氏卒日作「三十六日」，於曆不合。
- 三世佚名老祖公一節，末數字漫漶不可辨。
- 七世「儲贈」非通行之例。通例作「誥贈」「例贈」，二者所指授銜之由不同。
- 「汀洲府」通行作「汀州府」，今仍其舊。「朱基街」或即「珠璣」。
Settled
已定
The eighteenth position of the generation poem is 功, written small in the margin. The poem holds twenty-nine characters, matching the preface. The cover colophons read 敬書 and 留傳.
字輩詩十八世為「功」，旁補小字。全詩二十九字，合於序文。卷首二題款作「敬書」「留傳」。
Bracket convention
括號之例
Anything in 〔 〕 is not on the page. It has been supplied by living family and is marked so the transcription and the additions never blur together.
凡〔 〕內之文，非簿中所有，乃族人口述所補，特為標識，以別於原文。
Character forms
字體
The sixteenth generation's character is written 継, the form the book uses. It is an abbreviated form of 繼, in handwritten circulation long before any official simplification; the mainland simplified form is 继. Three shapes, one character, one position in the poem.
十六世字作「継」，從簿中原書。此為「繼」之俗省，行於手書已久，非後來簡化所出；大陸簡化字作「继」。三形一字，於詩中同居一位。
Names in two languages
名之二讀
From the twelfth generation the family is living on the Vietnamese side, and Mandarin pinyin is the wrong sound for those men. Where the Vietnamese form is known it is given first: 劉継旼 was Van Ke Luu, 劉振強 was Cuong Chan Luu. Earlier ancestors keep pinyin. Generations 12 to 15 await their Vietnamese forms.
十二世以降，族居越南，官話拼音已非其實讀。凡越南讀法可考者先列之：劉継旼作 Van Ke Luu，劉振強作 Cuong Chan Luu。其在閩粵之祖，仍用拼音。十二至十五世之越南名，尚待訪求。
Dates
紀年
Sexagenary years are converted to the most plausible Gregorian year given position in the lineage, and marked as inferred. Lunar month and day are left unconverted, since a lunar date without a locality is not safely convertible.
干支之年，據其世次推為公曆，並註明係推定。月日仍其陰曆，蓋不知其地，不敢遽改。
Terms kept in the original
存其舊稱
- 灰坟 — a lime-mortar tomb of crushed shell, lime and sticky rice.
- 金骨 — "golden bones." In the southern second-burial custom the body is exhumed after some years, the bones cleaned into a ceramic urn and reinterred. Bones travel; bodies do not.
- 座西向東 and the like — the seated-and-facing bearing of a grave. 乾巽兼戌辰 is a finer reading on the same compass.
- 仙人抱鼓, 仙人現靴, 螺形, 金星形 — form-names of the ground a grave sits in.
- 承継 — an heir brought in from a brother's line to carry a sonless man's name.
- 契名 — a second name given when a child is pledged to a deity, a godparent, or sometimes a tree or a stone. Not routine: it marks a child someone was worried about.
- 儒林郎 — a sixth-rank honorary civil title, here granted posthumously.
- 灰坟：以蜃灰、蠣殼、糯米搗築之墓，南方通制。
- 金骨：南俗二次葬，數年後啟殯，洗骨納甕改葬。骨可遷徙，屍不可，故簿中多記遷骨之事。
- 座西向東之類：墓之坐向，以羅盤定之。「乾巽兼戌辰」乃同盤更細之度。
- 仙人抱鼓、仙人現靴、螺形、金星形：皆墓地形勢之名。
- 承継：無子者，取兄弟之子入嗣，以延其祀。
- 契名：契於神明、契爺娘，或契樹契石而得之別名。非人人皆有，蓋為家人所憂之子而設。
- 儒林郎：從六品散階，此處為身後追贈。