Hello,
I'm in Taiwan and my wife is ethnic Chinese. I can explain a few points.
1. Position of Women in Society
In traditional Chinese society, women join their husbands' families when they marry. As a consequence of this, it isn't very easy to locate records related to women because records are kept related to the husband's family and not the wife.
2. Household Registry
I can't speak for China - although I know they do have a household registry, here in Taiwan there is a household registry office which holds all records for people who are resident in Taiwan. It's quite a simple process to apply for all the records of the family in the direct line. When I traced my wife's details they were surprised that I wanted her maternal line as well - they did provide it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
Our information went back to the time of the Japanese Colonial Period in Taiwan 1895 - 1945. I would be very interested to know about the situation in China because there aren't any Qing Dynasty records that we could look at here.
3. Family Tablets
Many Chinese families honor their ancestors by keeping there names inscribed on a family tablet which is kept on the family alter shine in the home of the eldest son. He passes this down to his eldest son and so on. This could be a source of information.
4. Chinese Characters
Records are kept in Chinese script so it is vital that you have the correct name of your family when you go looking for records. With over one billion and a half Chinese on the planet and the fact that there are only a very few family names combined with the fact that given names are only two characters (sometimes only one) long, looking for the equivalent of John or Jane Smith is truly an impossible task. So, it pays to have as many details as you can about the person including dates. It's also very lucky if they have am unusual name - that really helps to find them.
I hope this helps a little.
Regards,
Sean.
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