The PBS documentary “Chinese Exclusion Act” took me on a deep dive into our family history. It is common knowledge within the family that our great grandfather opened a restaurant in Springfield, MA in early 1900s and that one of his sons was gunned down at the restaurant. But very little else was known, including his name. We know his real name, of course, but he entered the US as a “paper son” and no one in the family who is alive today knows what that was.
I’ve always wanted to know more, but I thought that I would have to go to the “morgues” of the Springfield newspapers, or to pore over unknown numbers of microfilm rolls, to get more information. It did not occur to me to check if these papers had been digitized. Ancestry.com would be helpful but I needed the name my great grandfather used to enter the U.S. (Thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act, we have records of all Chinese passengers who entered the U.S.)
I’m now reading up on Chinese American miners in Oregon. It appears that at least one of my grandfather’s cousins worked as a miner in Canyon City, OR!