A genealogy book or register is used in Asia and Europe to record the family history of ancestors.
During the Cultural Revolution, many of the books were destroyed, because they were considered by the Chinese Communist Party as among the Four Olds which should be obliterated or broken.
In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and areas untouched by the revolution, many Chinese people still kept their genealogy books, some of which are thousands of years old.
[1] In India, Michael Lobo has been involved in documenting and compiling the history and genealogy of families belonging to the Mangalorean Catholic community since 1993, under a research project entitled "A Genealogical Encyclopaedia of Mangalorean Catholic Families".
Many of these genealogy books date back to the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) but few families retain complete copies due to the wars, uprisings, and the Japanese Occupation that took place in recent history.