History of Jew Surname

November 2, 2003

Lester D.K. Chow
P.O. Box 4604
Honolulu, Hawaii 96812
Tel: (808) 538-1855
mailto: lchow@nospam.lava.net

Rebecca Jew
3131 N. 70th St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
mailto:rebelynn@cox.net

I am writing to say that I like your genealogy homepage. It certainly looks nice and it has the appearance of being professionally done. That's to your credit. Good work! https://rebelynn21.tripod.com/jewroots/id2.html I am writing to give you an update on our Jew/Chow genealogy sites:

1. The new url for the Chow genealogy site is http://www.geocities.com/zhouclan/chia_pu.html
2. The Chou Clansmen Association site (http://www.idis.com/ChouOnline) has been taken down and will be relocated to http://chouclansmenassociation.com and http://zhouclansmenassociation.com (our trade names), when we are ready. We do not have enough members and we are currently experiencing financial problems. Our Hawaii USA lineage represents the main lineage of the entire Chou Dynasty.

Origin of the Jew surname
When we, Chinese, came to America, our family surname was Romanized in many different ways. In mainland China, because people use Chinese characters in writing, our family name is always the same. Indigenous Han-Chinese people use only one character as their surname, for example surnames like Chow, Chang, Ching, Lum, Wong, and Sung are composed of only one Chinese character. The correct and generally used Romanization is Chow in Cantonese and Zhou in Pinyin. Variations have been created in the West, sometimes, to signify a certain lineage or family legacy. For example, the main lineage of the Chou Dynasty (going back to the following dynasties: Chou Dynasty 1122-256 BC, Northern Chou Dynasty 557-581 AD, Later Chou Dynasty 951-960 AD, and Modern Chou Dynasty 1644-2003 AD), a dynasty family comprised of over 20 Chinese family surnames, goes by the surname of Chow. A secondary lineage, from the Northern Chou Dynasty, uses Jue as their surname, after their founding branch ancestor.

The proper Romanization of our family name, today, is Chow in Cantonese and Zhou in Mandarin (Pinyin). We use the Romanization of Chou (Zhou in Pinyin) to signify our dynasty in accord with Chinese custom. The name Chow (Chow, Zhou, or Chou), pronounced as Jo in the Middle East and China, comes from our family's early Hebrew or Shemite origin in the Fertile Crescent (3896-1900 BC).

We are not Jews. The Chow clan is an early Hebrew tribe (about 200 years prior to the time of Abram), also called Shemites, descendants of Eber, who resided in Hassuna in Iraq as their village. Every tribe had their own God-given land, where they resided. Hassuna in Iraq was our family's village (city, hometown). In 2205 BC Nimrod, an evil and wicked warlord, an opposer to God, took his people and absorbed (sinocized) other people and (took) their lands up and down the Tigris River and throughout the Fertile Crescent. Asshur, Calah, Nineveh, and Khorsabad are cities, where the descendants of Jobab resided alongside of the descendants of Asshur, that were claimed in the name of Nimrod. http://www.geocities.com/zhouclan/genealogy/bible/file.html

Generally, Chinese people with the surname of Jew are descendants of the Chou Dynasty (carrying the "Jo" surname) whose surnames were Romanized as such to honor our family's Hebrew heritage in America. In 2086 BC or around that time period there lived a man, a descendant of Jobab, named Ju in China. His name meant to eat greens instead of eating meat, because in days of old God had commanded it. The Chou clan, being the family in mainland China that brought and held the worship of God in China, throughout history has memorialized Ju. And so upon our arrival to the United States of America, some family members were called Ju, after one of our founding ancestors. The name Ju was, somehow, Romanized in a Christian way and the Chinese surname of Jew came
about. http://www.geocities.com/zhouclan/chia_pu.html

Other Jew/Chow links:
http://www.pacificnet.net/jue/