Expertise in various elements of Chinese languages was needed to translate the headstones found across Montana. First, the translation team rendered the individual names and village names from the traditional Chinese characters on each headstone into how the names would have sounded in the language likely to have been spoken by these Chinese Montanans. As the map at the bottom of this page indicates, these men were from a specific region of southern China, notably Guangdong Province. While Cantonese is the language of this region, many were from Taishan County where the language spoken is Taishanese (or Hoisanwa). Therefore, to try to find the individuals commemorated on these headstones in historic records, it was crucial to know how they would have pronounced their own names. Getting both a Cantonese and Taishanese pronunciation helped to approximate the pronunciation of names, key to finding the identity of each individual. Dr. Genevieve Leung of the University of San Francisco and her research assistants Ellie Ho and Corina Mong conducted the translation and provided the Cantonese, Taishanese, and Mandarin pronunciation for each headstone.

Once the writing on the headstones was translated, work could begin to identify the individuals commemorated and research the lives they led while in Montana. For instance, the translation of the headstone to the left from the Mountview Cemetery in Billings, Montana provided the name of the individual as Mar Fook Man who died on January 13th. English-language sources provide the death certificate that matches with this individual’s name and date of death, further clarifying that he died in 1937. The 1930 census indicates Mar Fook Man had been in Montana since 1894 working as a cook in a cafe run by Yee Hum.