Shanghai Library has announced that it expects to complete the world's largest genealogical database, containing about 50,000 Chinese family trees, by the end of this year.

The database, comprising tens of thousands of characters, records Chinese families' lives and histories going back 1,000 years, said a spokesman with Shanghai Library, China's second largest public library with the most extensive collection of original genealogical documents.

"The idea of collecting all Chinese family trees was approved by the Ministry of Culture in 2001 because more Chinese people, including overseas Chinese, come to the library for information on their families," said Wang Heming, head of the library's historical document institute.

The compilation includes contributions from the Genealogical Society of Utah, overseas Chinese libraries in Singapore and Holland, libraries in Taiwan, as well as similar institutions in other places.

The database would be put on line so the public could research family documents from home, said Wang.

The genealogical documents in the library cover 335 common and 90 rare surnames. Its reading room for genealogical information opened in 1996.

(Shanghai Daily March 27, 2007)