The main inscription comprises of 12 chinese characters on the grave stone of YEO LAN NEO 林 鱗娘 (my paternal great grand-mother)##

01. This grave is located at Bt Brown cemetery, Blk1, number 315B, next to grand-father’s (at 314B).

Yeo Lan Neo – born: 10th March 1865, died: 27th July 1948

02. The GPS location of Chia Hood Theam/Yeo Lan Neo gravesite  is

N 01 deg 20.182’    E 103 deg 49.343’    elevation: 83m

顕 Xian

1 Yeo Lan Neo rev:00 date: 26th Feb 2012

妣 Bi (顕 妣 together means Late Mother)

謚   Yi in respect of (for lady only, male used 諱) **

 鱗 Ling (name= Lan)

娘 Niang (name= Neo)

謝     Xie married surname, Chia

門   Men (house of)

楊 Yang  (Yeo = maiden surname)

孺 Ru (these two characters are …

 人   Ren   the equiv of ‘gong’ for female)

壽 Shou

域 Yu (combined together with 壽域 = domain of longevity)

The additional characters at the bottom of the inscriptions are just there to make up the total number of  characters to either 6,7,11,12,16 or 17 which are auspicious and using feng shui principles. .. location: Blk1, grave 314 B

Note: ** same principle as some Orthodox Christians cannot refer to God by name, but instead as YahWei or the special symbol (://:) found in the old bible; we cannot call our dead parents directly by name to show respect, since the grave stone was installed by the children of the deceased.

Following photo is a close up of the inscription on the grave stone.

2 Yeo Lan Neo rev:00 date: 26th Feb 2012

3 Yeo Lan Neo rev:00 date: 26th Feb 2012

03 . On the left panel, the English inscription on the stone reads

“In Loving Memory of Yeo Lan Neo (nonya tawee)“.

04. On the right panel, the English inscription on the stone show the dates of birth and death (as also shown above) born: 10th March 1865, died: 27th July 1948

05. On closer inspection, and using the inscriptions found on the gravestones of Chia Keng Tye/Lim Tuan Neo as a guide, 前宅

(qianzhai)** are the 2 characters that can be barely made out, on the top of the gravestone, flanking the picture of YLN, and refers to the Chia Family ancestral birthplace in Fujian province.

** This is based on the Chia ancestral village known to be Tong An (同 安) in Fujian province, which is close to Quanzhou (almost on the border), and follows the modern administrative divisions; in the past Tong An was a county and Xiamen would have been part of it :-

厦门市 (Xiamen City)

同安区 (Tongan District)

大同镇 (Datong Town)

田洋村 (Tianyang Village)

前宅 (Qianzhai) [GPS: N 24.742271, E 118.137145].

## Ref:  the Chia family tree http://www.ccchia.com/chiafamily/tree1x.html and the Chia family Bt Brown blog at http://chiafamily.wordpress.com

4 Yeo Lan Neo rev:00 date: 26th Feb 2012