Kin Networks of Local Officials in 19th and Early 20th Century China

We introduce a new source for the study of the kinship networks and careers of local officials in China in the late Qing, that is the late 19th and early 20th century. These officials constituted a local bureaucratic and educational elite, but compared with elite officials, relatively little is known about their characteristics, including their family backgrounds and kin networks. To study them, we have constructed a new dataset from Tongguanlu rosters of officials that include their resumes, degree or other qualifications and rosters of their kin and are available for officials in a variety of locations in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Information for officials includes not only the names and degrees held by patrilineal father, grandfather, and great-grandfather commonly recorded for elite examination degree holders that have been studied previously, but detailed information about uncles, great-uncles, male cousins, sons, and nephews, and basic information about female kin including mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, daughters. In contrast with other sources that only include holders of elite exam degrees, Tongguanlu include holders of purchased Jiansheng and Tribute (Gongsheng) degrees, low-level prefectural degrees Shengyuan, and other qualifications. We provide background on the Tongguanlu as a source, describe how we constructed the dataset, summarize its contents, and then present results on the posts, qualifications, and kin networks of local officials. We show that holders of purchased degrees and low-level Shengyuan examination degrees were less likely than holders of higher degrees to come from families with a history of holding degrees, and that officials with regular appointments were more likely to have kin with degrees than officials with acting appointments, or who were expectant officials.