Sub-series consists of family trees for certain Chinese families documented in the Chinese case files in who were under investigation for possible involvement in irregular or illegal immigration schemes. The family trees are charts of "true" and "paper" family relationships, with cross references to relevant documents and files., These are specialized genealogical cross-reference charts or "Chinese Family Trees" (form IMM 692) completed by Immigration staff between 1964 and 1972 during investigations of illegal Chinese immigration under the Chinese Adjustment Statement Program. Almost all of the persons documented arrived in Canada between 1949 and 1972.
The Chinese Adjustment Statement Program was a continuing amnesty for persons of Chinese ancestry who had made false statements to secure landed immigrants status before 1960, in particular false claims of close family relationship to their sponsors in Canada (creating "paper" as opposed to "true" families). RCMP investigations into these immigration frauds resulted in a massive series of raids on Chinese-Canadian individuals, organizations, and businesses in May 1960. Reaction to these events led to the announcement by the Minister on 9 June 1960 of the Chinese Adjustment Statement Program (modelled on a similar American initiative) by which individuals were allowed to come forward voluntarily, "adjust" their status and remain in Canada. The Program's procedures were simplified in late 1962 (see Minister's statement dated 16 November 1962) and continued in force, despite periodic re-evaluations, until October 1973. At that date the small number of remaining eligible claims were merged with several other non-Chinese amnesty programs as the general "Status Adjustment Program". By that time the status of between 10,300 and 13,000 persons of Chinese ancestry had been adjusted under the program.
The Chinese Family Trees appear to have been created primarily as aids to nominal indexing of the complex "paper" and "true" family names involved in the adjustments, and to cross-reference related case files. They may have been filled out by special Chinese Records indexing officers. Each sheet is headed with a person's name and his/her case file number in the CH series. There are separate boxes for (a) the "sponsor" (subject's) names, including indexed name (underlined), alternative names, and/or aliases, with his/her entry certificate number (C.I.5, 28, 30 or 36) or date of grant of landed immigrant status and place of entry into Canada or place of residence; (b) name(s) of proposed relative(s) to be sponsored, including true and "paper" names, true and "paper" relationship to sponsor, date of grant of landed immigrant status, and place of entry into Canada or place of residence; (c) cross-references to the case files on related individuals; and (d) some general remarks on status matters. All names cited are in theory indexed in the Romanized nominal index (accessions 85-86/002, 85-86/051, 86-87/353, and cards still in possession of Department).
The trees are in numerical order by case file number from CH1-3 to CH1-28693. Photocopies of each tree were also placed on the relevant case files, but the images are often of poor quality. Some of the files to which the trees relate were destroyed in 1985-86 after an "F" sample was taken (as described under accession 86-87/353). Most of the original trees on files still in the Department's possession remain on the files and have not been transferred. Annotations by records clerk on the top left corner of each tree indicating a file was destroyed ("Dest.") or transferred to the PAC ("PAD") appear to be largely correct, but others ("Adj" for adjustment or adjudication and "Records" for files retained) may have been superseded by later file retirement actions.
