Asian Genealogy

The vastness of all things Asian is immense. From being the largest continent in land size to the most populated, the diversity in the people, cultural, history, languages, achievements, etc. is enormous. Dividing along geographical locations there is the east, southern, central, western, southeastern, and northern realms of Asia. The multiplicity of the people and their cultures range from the Japanese language to the Hindu religion to Confucius philosophy and Asian martial arts.

The Chinese have practiced their genealogical traditions for centuries, going back to the Shang Dynasty, 1766 B. C. to 1112 B.C., in China. They have especially kept a history of Chinese surnames and the use of Chinese surnames in literature. There is also written the reasons surnames have changed over the course of Chinese history.

The East Asian locations have been dominated by the Chinese culture over the centuries. The use of characters for writing was adopted by the Japanese and Koreans. The religious practices of Buddhism and Taoism are shared in many of the cultures of East Asia. Similar foods, such as rice and seafood, are grown and harvested in the region. Each ethnic group; Chinese, Japanese and Korean are diverse yet all share many unifying elements.

In Southeast Asia, the mainland and the islands share similar traditions and also have unique differences. With China to the north and India to the west, those two major ethnic groups had an immense impact of the languages, religions and culture of Southeast Asia.

Some items are found throughout most of the Southeast region, including the rice production techniques. The building of most homes on stilts due to the monsoons rains is also a common feature. Travel by small boats along the rivers, waterways and from island to island bring this region closer together. A special cultural feature is the utilizing movements of the hands and feet in the traditional dances. Western European influence in languages and culture; the Dutch, French, English, was also a major factor for centuries when most of the areas were held as colonies, an important aspect in Asian genealogy.

The South Asia region consists of the Indian subcontinent. The dominant group have been the East Indians. The most common religion is that of Hinduism practiced by 80 percent of the people of Indian and Nepal. Next would be Buddhism on the island of Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Coming from southwestern Asia, the Islamic religion is the main practice of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Most people share in the Dravidian language group which consist of some 85 different languages. Other language groups are Indo-Aryan found in Pakistan and Tibeto-Burmam in the eastern India.

West Asia is also known as the Middle East or Near East region. Most of the people of that area are Arabs with their own unique cultural traditions, languages and religions. The predominant religion is that of Islam. Other areas have a mixture of cultural groups, including Iraq that is Arab, Turkish and Persian. The West Asia area is known as the birthplace of three major religions; Christianity, Judaism and Islam, an interesting note in Asian genealogy.

Central Asia is made up of five former republics of the Soviet Union. The area has served as a trading route for centuries so many other cultural groups have blended with the region. With being in the center the people have also been influenced from the Chinese, Arabs, Persians and Indians.

North Asia, located in the northern region of present day Russia, has had the Siberian Tartars has the main ethnic group. This isolated area was adopted Turkic languages and many follow the Islamic religion. Their uniqueness is in appearance. There are some of Mongoloid and Caucasoid or a mixture of both plus some Asian origin.