The publications and readings of China-based Jesuits’ provide a deep insight into their know-how in light of statistical and historical analysis (Južnič, 2015, p. 126). The Social Network and Academic Genealogy of China-based Jesuit mathematicians and physicists uncovers the way they were educated in Europe. The Academic Genealogy of China-based Jesuits is a comparatively new approach offered in this article. For the time being, the research is limited to the data concerning China-based Jesuits from the Old Society of Jesus in the Austrian and Bohemian Jesuit provinces and to Tyrolean part of the Upper German Jesuit province, which is geographically situated on the territory of modern Austria and Italy. The aim is to get an insight into China-based Jesuits who came from the political unit of Habsburg-hereditary Mid-European lands (Österreichische Erblande), acquired by the Habsburgs in 1278, and from the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, annexed in 1526.

The political borders in those times do not quite match the borders of Jesuit provinces. In a broader sense, the Österreichische Erblande consisted of the Archduchy of Austria (Upper Austria and Lower Austria), Inner Austria, and the County of Tyrol. The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were a separate unit. The modern areas of Österreichische Erblande are the states of Austria, Slovenia, Northwestern Croatia with Istria, and Northeastern Italy. The modern area of the greatest part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown is the state of Bohemia, but its northern part now belongs to the Southeast Germany and Southwest Poland. The previously independent Crown-lands of Bohemia and the Hungarian Monarchy were both incorporated into the Habsburg Empire in 1526, but Bohemian contributions to the Chinese Jesuit missions were much greater because Jesuits from the Hungarian Kingdom did missionary work in their neighboring Turkish lands. In contrast, there were at least thirty-seven Hungarian and five Romanian Jesuits who successfully worked in China in 20th century. Another contrast is that many Croatian Jesuits from the Old Society worked in the Americas, including Ivan Ratkaj, Ferdinand Konšćak, Ignacije Szentmartony, and Franjo Ksaver Haller.