BEIJING — More than a million people around the world have responded to an appeal for people who think that they are descendants of the Chinese sage Confucius.

The appeal was made by Kong Deyong, a 77th-generation descendant of Confucius who founded the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee and is based in the family’s hometown of Qufu, eastern China.

Mr. Kong, a senior member of the Confucius clan, fled to Hong Kong after the cultural revolution, when he and many of his family members were persecuted, the sage’s home was vandalized and the family tombs desecrated. But now he is compiling a massive register of descendants with the backing of the Chinese government, which has restored the family’s home and turned it into a tourist attraction.

He now has more than 2 million people in his records, 1.3 million of whom are names added since he launched plans for a revision of the register in 1998, due mainly to the inclusion of women for the first time.

Although Confucius was little honored in his lifetime, and his works from time to time rejected outright during the 2,500 years since his death, he has been regarded as the founding father of Chinese political and ethical thought for most of that time.

It is believed that altogether the clan has more than 3 million members, all united by their family name, Kong, also written as Kung and Hung. Confucius’s proper name was Kong Zi.