Even in Taiwan, people can search their genealogical history via a family search Internet service provided by the Mormon church in the western US state of Utah. \nVia the FamilySearch Internet Service, headquartered in Salt Lake City, people in Taiwan can access many record collections about Chinese families to help them trace their ancestors, said Lee Hsing-yuan (李行遠), a staff member of the Salt Lake City Family History Library run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. \nAccording to Lee, the Salt Lake City Family History Library runs the world's largest family history library, dubbed the Pedigree Resource File, which is housed in a giant weather-proof granite cave. \nBelieving that family is designed by God for eternal relationships, the Mormons started building the library in 1894 and began to store individual family records on microfilm in 1938, gradually extending the file into the largest of its kind in the world, covering family history records for almost every race around the world, Lee said. \nThe FamilySearch Service now maintains more than 4,000 family history information centers around the world, with over 2,000 of them scattered around the US. \nFamilySearch Service began in 1970 to compile Chinese family history records, which contain mostly families from Taiwan and southern China. \nIt maintains a family history information center in Taiwan, in a Mormon church in Taipei, which so far has 9,300 individual files, covering the histories of 192 families of different names, Lee said. \nIn China, FamilySearch Service maintains two family history information centers, in Beijing and Shanghai, with 100,000-odd files covering more than 11,700 families of different names, he added. \nPeople who are interested in searching their family tree can first visit the FamilySearch Internet Service to find their series numbers in the catalog, and then go to the nearest family history information center to see the details stored on microfilm, Lee said. \nMeanwhile, Lee said that if people are interested in compiling their own family tree history, they can contact Salt Lake City Family History Library for how-to software. The library also provides free instructions in Mandarin.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
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