Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

The Confucius Family Tree

Confucius lived from 551-479 BC, 2,500 years ago.

His family tree was updated last year and the number of descendants now numbers more than 2,000,000.

I suppose most anybody born 2,500 years ago could have some 2 million descendants by now. The difference is, the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee knows who the descendants are.

If you have $10 and learn you are a descendant of the great thinker and educator you can get a cup of coffee and a danish at a nearby Starbucks.

Kong Dewei is a Confucius descendant who is directing and updating the work. He is also turning away new entries. Sorry, you can’t be a descendant even if you are.

There are 1.3 million living members of the Confucius family tree who have, get this, paid the official registration fee of five yuan to be included in the published lineage.

The lineage has been building since 1998 when a 77th-generation descendant established the committee in Hong Kong.

The fifth edition of the Confucius family tree will be published on the 2560th anniversary of his birth – 2009.

The family tree is regarded as the longest, with more than 80 generations.

Hmm… I think the King of England goes back to Adam, doesn’t he? And I am a seventh cousin to Prince Charles.

I don’t know how many descendants I will have, but the number of ancestors is more than I can imagine.

Have you ever traced your genealogy?

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Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.