There are three main approaches to the new period of South China lineage studies, that is, the approach of regional socio-economic history, the approach of anthropology, and the approach of historical anthropology. The former is mainly deeply influenced by Chinese socio-economic historiography, and is clearly manifested in the study of the lineage in Fujian and Guangdong during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Anthropology lineage studies continue the academic tradition of functionalism and community studies in the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on the discussion of regional social and cultural changes, and forming a method of emphasizing the relationship between local society and the state, introducing social history, and integrating synchronicity. The characteristics of the close combination of structural research and diachronic social change research. Since the 1990s, the Ming and Qing lineage studies in South China have gradually surpassed the research horizon of regional socioeconomic history, blended and penetrated with regional social history, and developed a research paradigm of historical anthropology. This approach is a more conscious advancement from the level of combining theory and practice on the basis of fully summing up the experiences of the first two.The study of lineage of South China in the new era has been deeply influenced by Western academic thoughts, especially the theory of lineage of Freedman in South China and regional system theory of G.William Skinner, as well as the theory and method of Annales School's historiography. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the application of social science method, the combination of history and anthropological theories and methods, and the internal mechanism of regional society development from the perspective of regional research. Thus, the characteristics of close integration between lineage research and regional society research have been formed. Throughout this period, there are obviously two basic trends in the study of lineage in South China. One is the gradual convergence of history and anthropology, and the development of historical anthropology, the other is the interaction between lineage studies and regional society research, focusing on the discussion of similarities and differences within the regional society. These two trends also reflected in the research of regional societies in North China, Jiangnan, Huizhou, and have become the mainstream trends in the development of regional social research.