Genealogy of Hereditary Families and Family Changes in Ming and Qing Dynasties——A Study on the Genealogy of ZUO Family in Menghua of Yunnan
Three genealogical forms of hereditary families prevailed against the backdrop of the hereditary system of military households in Ming Dynasty and the hereditary system of local officials in Ming and Qing Dynasties.One is"Qin'gong Document",a record of the merits and achievements of hereditary officials;the second is"Zizhi Document",a record of the incumbents;and the third is the genealogy including all or a lineage of the hereditary families.The ZUO family in Menghua of Yun-nan was a local hereditary family in Ming and Qing dynasties.The Genealogy of ZUO Family in Meng-hua and The Record of Official ZUO in Menghua,two"Qin'gong Documents"in Ming Dynasty,re-corded the merits and achievements of the successive local officials within the family and were used by the heirs to ask for hereditary.The purpose of both documents is to determine the order of succession and to maintain the status of the first-born sons.During the reign of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynas-ty,The Genealogy of ZUO Family in Menghua,complied by the son of a concubine,recorded all lin-eages of the family in response to implementing the Imperial Edict.The ZUO family has built family temples,private shrines,dedicated shrines,and supported the building of Buddhist temples as well.The family temple was a place for the incumbents to worship the four generations of ancestors before the period of Emperor Jiajing in Ming Dynasty.The private shrine was a place for worshipping the founder and successive generations of ancestors after Emperpor Jiajing.And the dedicated shrine,built in the period of Emperor Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty,was an official ancestral temple dedicated to ZUO Chong and ZUO Tinggao,the father and son of a concubine.The ZUO family started to build Bud-dhist temples in the period of Emperor Chenghua in Ming Dynasty to offer incense to the dead.The family temples were then deserted with the emergence of private shrines,which were merged with the Buddhist temples.When it came to the period of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty,the private shrines were deserted,and the dedicated shrines became the family shrines.The phenomena reflect the fact that the privilege of the first-born son in enjoying the status of an official and bringing imperial favors to his ancestors was being challenged,while the son of a concubine could also improve their so-cial status through the imperial examination and brought the Court's grace to the ancestors in the con-text of the institutional changes in Ming and Qing dynasties.The similar family changes in the geneal-ogy of ZUO family in Menghua could also be found in other genealogies of the military official families,which reflect the changes in the status of the first-born son and the son of a concubine in hereditary families against the background of the institutional changes of Ming and Qing Dynasties.
hereditary familiesgenealogyYunnanMing and Qing Dynasties
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