By Joachim Ng
Do you know that discovering who your great-grandparent is and who your distant relatives are can boost your health level more than a month’s dose of multivitamins? If there is a family lineage museum in your city, make a beeline for it as you may detect a familiar name – someone that you have links with. Tracing network connections stimulates positive emotions, reduces cortisol (the stress hormone), and promotes a sense of vitality.
The health benefits of immersion in social connections were confirmed in a 2019 study published in the journal The BMJ which found that older adults who engaged with the arts (including visits to any type of museum) had a lower risk of dying over a 14-year period than those who did not.
Some hospitals in Europe and America are now prescribing museum visits as fit venues for physical and intellectual exercise, as such visits do not require strenuous workouts. Although not a high-intensity exercise, museum visits involve walking, standing, and mild movement, which is beneficial compared to sedentary activities.
Family lineage museums confer a variety of benefits that are reasons for the growing popularity of a unique tourist destination in Ipoh – the YLCO Museum located in 1 Lasam Building, Greentown. Visitors – in the early months just a few dropping by, and now pouring in from many regions of the world – have been coming over the past 13 years to view the museum’s ever-growing display of lineage charts, photo albums, and memorabilia.
A family lineage museum that offers knowledge of deep-rooted ancestries, confers three important benefits, not just for kinsfolk but for non-related visitors as well because they will likely acquire the feeling that all humans are somehow related. These benefits are –
CONNECTING RELATIVES:
Genealogical tracing often leads to discovering distant cousins and re-establishing lost connections. You may find a hitherto unknown relative living in the same town or belonging to the same chatgroup.
Social networking always begins with the family – parents, siblings, uncles, aunties, nephews and nieces. But we naturally seek broader contacts. This is where grandparents and great-grandparents come in by widening your kinship circle to include the families of your grand-uncles, grand-aunties, and great-grands.
These clan relationships, anchored on blood lineage, possess historical depth and natural affinity that confer the advantage of reciprocity. You can usually turn to a kinsman or clansman for help in need or for job and business contacts.
Rural communities, where kinsfolk tend to stay in the same village or district, are more stable than urban societies where geographical dispersion, job pressures, and other social networks tend to weaken kinship ties.
Here’s where the YLCO Museum stands tall like a beacon of light beckoning all and sundry to come and gather round. YLCO stands for Yeoh, Lim, Chew, and Oh – four large clans that have been growing through marriage and descent.
Capitalising on global job mobility, YLCO members have also moved into other countries acquiring different nationalities and marrying the nationals of these countries. Over the years, YLCO linkages have sprouted up in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan,India, Iran, Nigeria, Australia, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, France, America, and Canada.
YLCO has been transformed into YLCO International with East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, West African, and European ancestral lineages on board. Despite their global spread, the clans have a central axis in the YLCO Museum. This is where all have year-round opportunities to converge for reunions and celebrations, turning Ipoh into a favourite destination spot on their calendar.
The dozens of other clan names acquired through marriages has inspired YLCO Museum founder and curator Ignatius Chew to coin a new relativity theory using Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2, dubbing it as Everybody = many clans marrying clans.
Locally, marriages have linked YLCO to other surnames such as Chang and Cheah. YLCO members have also married into prominent Malay families including Perak royalty.
BOOSTING HEALTH:
Family lineage museums help correct the growing malaise of urban loneliness that results in psychological ailments. Befrienders Kuala Lumpur, a church-funded organisation, has been providing free counselling services to lonely persons with personality disorders for 60 years now. Volunteers reveal that many young people suffering these conditions have had few meaningful social contacts since childhood.
The root cause is the alienation of modern urban families from kinsfolk and early-life friends. Relatives and old friends are scattered with usually no one and no place as the central axis. Research over the past two decades has also shown that oldies who no longer show interest in socialising may be worsening their own mental conditioning.
To offer these benefits, YLCO Museum provides opportunities for small and big family reunions to gather so that kinsfolk can exchange stories and histories while examining the vibrant tapestry of history and legacy coming alive through memorable exhibits. Even non-relatives can gain health benefits as they may recognise individuals featured in photos and names on charts.
You get a sense of fulfilment too should your face appear in some event picture or lineage chart. “I never dreamt that my photograph would be displayed in a museum,” a family member from Britain was heard saying.
Old photographs trigger memories of past excitements and reunions, stimulating mental activity. “Yes I know him/her”… a remark uttered with excitement that you sometimes hear from non-relative visitors. Psychotherapists are confident that visits to any museum are medically helpful, and are a substitute for medicines that shouldn’t be taken for too long a stretch of time.
Knowing your family’s medical history can alert you to potential genetic conditions (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, or cancer) and encourage proactive healthcare. For instance, if you know that there have been family members in previous generations who were obese, it could be a sign that you are prone to diabetes. Immediately cut down on your intake of processed foods containing added sugar. Was someone connected to you and recorded in history as having died of heart disease? It’s a warning.
Exposure to art, culture, and history can enhance feelings of meaning and personal growth, both of which are protective factors for mental health in reducing loneliness, improving mood, bolstering confidence, and increasing subjective well-being.
If you turn up at a big celebration and you are lucky, you may get to meet illustrious names connected to YLCO such as famed superstars Michelle Yeoh and Nancy Kwan.
UNIFYING HUMANITY:
When Ignatius Chew began his first small dig into family connections in 1969, little did he realise he was planting a tiny seed that would grow into a gigantic “banyan” tree structure with roots going deep into the earth and branches spreading across continents to eventually connect all human lineages. A magnificent pattern of human unity is slowly emerging.
YLCO Museum has extended beyond a collection of kinsfolk lineages. Two unrelated families centered on Foo Yet Kai and Loh Kim Foh have donated information on their family histories for display at the YLCO Museum. Ignatius welcomes all Malaysians, including Malays, Indians, and Orang Asli to place their family books in the museum as “we are all descendents of Mitochondrial Eve and Eurasian Adam,” he says.
Ignatius invites you to deposit some of your memorabilia or copies with him so that he can deepen the task of connecting unrelated families who have contributed to the development of Ipoh, Perak, and Malaysia. This way, the YLCO Museum can be transformed into a Museum of Malaysian Families.
In the museum you will learn to discard the word “race” from your thinking and conversations, and instead learn to use the correct terms such as “lineage,” “ancestry,” and “roots.” Race as a biological concept doesn’t hold up in modern genetics, as genetic diversity within so-called “races” is greater than between them.
Ignatius has produced five pictorial books tracing our roots all the way back to Africa and to Mitochondrial Eve, the mother of all modern humans. Tracking migration paths of your ancestors across regions and continents will reveal that all human lineages are merely divergent lines from one source, and with increasing globalisation trends all human lineages are converging again under a broad “unity in diversity” pattern.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ipoh Echo
