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 TheLYEW-AYEEFamily
by PARRIS A. LYEW-AYEE |
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TheLYEW-AYEEFamily
by PARRIS A. LYEW-AYEE |
Contents:
Important Links:
LATEST NEWS 1. May 13, 2004: Adrian Lyew-Ayee graduated from the University of Miami with a Master’s degree in Marine Affairs and Policy. As part of this programme, he worked for six months as an intern at the Biscayne National Park in South Florida. On September 15 he began working at Coastal Systems International, Inc. in Coral Gables, Florida, as a Marine Scientist/Project Manager. 2. May 29, 2004: Maisie Chang passed away at age 82 after a long illness. 3. June
27, 2004: Parris and Anne Lyew-Ayee celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary
in San Fernando, Trinidad, with Wilson and Barbara Lalla – who had been
the only two witnesses to their wedding in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1975.
4. August 24, 2004: Parris Lyew-Ayee, Jr (PJ) successfully defended his D.Phil. thesis at Oxford University, completing his doctoral degree at the age of 23 years. 5. September
3, 2004: Magdalene (“Sissy”) Kong passed on after a short illness, just
short of her 82nd birthday. In spite of the onslaught of Hurricane Ivan
between September 10 and 11, a beautiful funeral mass was held on September
13 at the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Kingston. Most of the
Kong children (9 of the surviving 12) made it to the funeral, and the church
was ¾ full with family, friends and well-wishers who gave Sissy
a wonderful sendoff.
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INTRODUCTION
The Lyew-Ayee family in its simplest sense is relatively small and close-knit. The core of the family (see below) is made of the parents, Rupert and Louise, and their five children: Rupert Ayee and Louise Lee
It is hoped that this site will help to show the linkages and interconnections among our range of cousins, and help to keep us in touch with each other as well as to get in touch with others. This will show the relationships we have with the Ayees, Browns, Changs, Chens, Chins, Gillettes, Kongs, Lees, Moo-Youngs, Ngs, Phangs, Phillippses, Tans, Ting-A-Kees, Wongs, etc.  FIRST
THINGS FIRST
What is the origin of the name Lyew-Ayee? We have been asked that question a million times, and heard the many, many ways in which our name has been mispronounced. This name is actually my great-grandfather's full name. The family name is LYEW. My great-grandfather's full name was LYEW YI, but he was affectionately called A Yi. During the late 19th century, when he took on a western name for business purposes, he became John Lyew A-Yi, which soon became John Lyew Ayee. At this point, the Western mind began using Ayee as the family name, and John Ayee was used in business, and by his children. However, my father, Rupert, was constantly reminded by his grandmother (known fondly to all of us as Gong-gong) that the family name is Lyew. In an effort to maintain this link, he chose to use the surname Lyew-Ayee, thereby keeping intact the family name from China, yet still maintaining the connection with those who continued to use the Ayee name. HISTORY
OF THE LYEW FAMILY NAME
Tang, the leader of the powerful Shang Clan, destroyed the Xia Dynasty and founded the Shang Dynasty (1765-1135 BC). He appointed Shu An, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, to be the leader of the settlement. Tang named it the "Liao" settlement, and Shu An became the equivalent of "Lord Liao", and the title was inheritable. Many generations later his descendants adopted Liao as their family name. So the family name Liao (also Lyew, Leow, Liu) is some 3130 years old, and originated in the Ru Yang Prefecture in the current Henan Province of China. based on research by Chung Yoon Ngam In my search for the fullness of our family connections, I did not follow orthodox genealogical guidelines of tracing only the male lineage blessed by formal matrimony. Instead, I opened all the avenues and traced blood lines, in and out of wedlock, and across racial divides. This led me to find a wide, wonderful world of cousins and other relatives who would otherwise have been lost in time and space very shortly. IN THE BEGINNING I have
chosen to start our family tree from John Lyew A-Yi and Paris Lowe (Gong-gong),
whose birth name was Elizabeth Poon. However, before settling in Jamaica,
John first went to Costa Rica, where he had a family out of wedlock with
one Emma Kelly. The offspring of these two families are as follows:
John Lyew A-Yi & Emma Kelly
The preceding
lists show the descendants of these 12 children of John Lyew A-Yi. Clarence
Ayee was my
MATERNAL LINES Tracing
my mother's side of the family tree has proven to be just as interesting.
Here I began with my mother's parents, who
Lee Young Kan and Beatrice A'costa
 MAKING
OF THE FAMILY TREE
The most common question I get is: "How did you put this family tree together?" The quick answer is: "Not easily!" This task was made quite difficult by: the lack of good record keeping by the state on a global scale; the absence of written records by individual families; the mutations in family names as individuals travelled to and settled in various parts of the world; and, not least, my embarking on this mission when so many of the older ones with the long memories had left us. But, having done palaeontology in Geology, the study of the old fossil records and stories to be told by only the rocks, cracks and ripples, I decided that this genealogy thing should not be so difficult a nut to crack! My starting points were excellent. First, my father (Rupert) has a remarkable memory, with a penchant for details and dates on my paternal side. Aunt Mae (Mabel Ayee Phillipps) gave me access to her treasure trove (literally a grip) of very old, old and new photographs of the family on the Ayee side. On my maternal side, Aunt Sissy (Magdalene Lee Kong) provided both a gold mine of pictures as well as details from a fine memory. Those were my starting points - a rough sketch, an outline without details and without verification of information. My quest for authentication of information meant hours spent in dusty rooms at the old Registrar General's Department in Spanish Town, and later at its new offices at Twickenham Park, going over old birth, death and marriage registers from the 19th century. I also had to study old church records (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Mormon and Jewish), and visit cemeteries to obtain information from tombstones (those that were not stolen!). The next part was the fun part - calling family contacts by telephone,, tthen spending hours in visits to obtain information and (very important for me) old photographs to borrow. Imagine getting a telephone call from Jamaica, from someone you have never heard of until now, who wants to know all about your parents and grandparents! When people got over the initial surprise and apprehension, they were extremely helpful, and even very happy to have found some family roots which seemed to have been lopped off in the dim past. Each interview gave me new leads which had to be followed. Eventually I made visits to all my contacts in Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Panama, Colombia, the USA, Canada, Australia, and England. The cooperation, support and warmth I received was just fantastic. I did not contact or meet a single person who did not express delight at this development in their lives, and with whom I have not continued to keep in touch. Management and manipulation of the information which was quickly piling up was the next big step. First, there was the development of the database, and the capturing of all the photographs. The only sane way was to computerize the operation, which meant a good CPU with gigabytes of storage space, a good scanner to capture precious family pictures (some very old) so I could return the originals to their owners, and a robust set of software to handle the data to my satisfaction. For me the chase and the preparation of the reports have all been fun, but the biggest high is seeing the sparkle in the eyes of a cousin here or there who sees the vast network of our great family for the first time. The work goes on. |
Map
of the World, showing the Distribution of Family Members around the Globe
The countries shown in green are countries where family members live, or have lived in the past before migrating elsewhere. The red symbols show the cities where they live.
