The genealogy of a Mongol family related to the descendants of the great Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan has been included in China's list of ancient archives.
The eight-meter-long document of Tulin Gujen's family lists 14 generations with over 1,900 Mongols, most of whom served as high-ranking officials, from 1635 to the early 1900s, said Zhao Yunpeng, deputy head of the Liaoning Provincial Archives.
The genealogy, the largest ever found, is kept at the archives of Harqin Left Wing Mongolian Autonomous County, west of Liaoning Province, northeast China.
Mongolian scholars in the county say Tulin Gujen's family was closely linked to Genghis Khan's by marriage.
"Tulin Gujen's forefather Djelme contributed tremendously to Genghis Khan's unification of Mongolian tribes," said Hu Guozhi, a Mongolian scholar, "The Mongolian emperor therefore decreed that his family ally with the Djelme's, and his daughter was married to Djelme's son."
Genghis Khan, which means "universal ruler" in Mongolian, unified Mongol tribes and became the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire in 1206. Kublai, one of Genghis Khan's grandsons, later became the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.
China's list of ancient archives was initiated by the State Archives Administration in 2002 to include ancient archive holdings and library collections that are either kept at museums or in the hands of private collectors at home and abroad.
(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2003)
