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Fujian White Crane is a martial art which its traditions attribute to a woman named Fāng Qīniáng (方七娘;)

The Fāng family lived in Fujian, a province of China, in a place where there were many cranes.
Qīniáng's father knew the Southern Chinese martial arts and taught them to his daughter.

One day, while Qīniáng was doing her chores, a crane alighted nearby.
Qīniáng tried to scare the bird off using a stick and the skills she learned from her father but whatever she did, the crane would counter.
Qīniáng tried to hit the crane on the head, but the bird moved its head out of the way and blocked the stick with its wings.
Qīniáng tried to hit the crane's wings, but the crane stepped to the side and this time blocked with the claws of its feet.
Qīniáng tried to poke the crane's body, but the crane dodged backwards and struck the stick with its beak.

From then on, Qīniáng carefully studied the movements of cranes and combined these movements with the martial arts she learned from her father, creating the White Crane style of Fujian Province.

Over time White Crane branched off into several styles:

The Jumping Crane master Yang Jwing-Ming dates the creation of Fujian White Crane to c. 1700.

According to the traditions of the Lee family branch of Flying Crane, Fāng Qīniáng was born in the mid-18th century.

According to its traditions, the lineage of the Ong Gong Shr Wushuguan in the town of Yǒngchūn (永春; Minnan: eng2 chhun1) in the prefecture of Quanzhou in Fujian Province was established when Fāng Qīniáng taught its founders during the reign of the Ming emperor Jiāzhèng (嘉政). However, there was no Ming emperor Jiāzhèng (嘉政); there was a Ming emperor Jiājìng (嘉靖), who ruled from 1521 to 1566.

Lǐ Wénmào (李文茂), a historically verifiable opera performer and leader in the 1854-1855 Red Turban Rebellion in Foshan, is said to have practiced the Yǒngchūn style of White Crane.

Fujian White Crane is one of the constituent styles of Five Ancestors.

Five Ancestors as well as various styles of Karate, notably Goju Ryu and Uechi Ryu, obtained the routine San Chian from Fujian White Crane. San Chian is best known by the Japanese pronunciation of its name: Sanchin.

But the story continious...

The closely related martial arts Lama Pai, Tibetan White Crane, and Hop Gar have their most recent common ancestor in a martial art called Lion's Roar and a Tibetan monk, Sing Lung, who in 1865 relocated to Guangdong Province, to the Green Cloud Monastery.

Though Sing Lung had many students, his legacy was handed down to the present day primarily through two of them: Wong Yan-Lam and Wong Lam-Hoi.

Tibetan White Crane 

The name "Tibetan White Crane" is associated with the lineage passed down from Wong Lam-Hoi through Ng Siu-Chung, whose training with Wong was later supplemented by training with Chu Chi-Yiu, another of Sing Lung's students.

Lama Pai 

The name "Lama Pai" is associated with the lineage passed down from Wong Yan-Lam through Jyu Chyuhn and Choi Yit-Gung, two of his later students.

Hop Gar 

The name "Hop Gar" is, with the exception of Harry Ng Yim-Ming, associated with the lineage passed down through Wong Yan-Lam's earlier students, especially Wong Hon-Wing.

The original Lion's Roar system is attributed to a monk named Ādátuó (阿達陀), said to have been born in 1426 to a tribe known for its horsemanship and for its joint-locking techniques. Ādátuó also received training in wrestling including, after his ordination, a style called "Dinah" from an old man from Tala. Ādátuó eventually decided to become a hermit in the mountains so that he could follow the dharma without distraction. One day by the side of a pond, his meditation was interrupted by a fight between an ape and a crane. Inspired, Ādátuó devised a style that incorporated both the ape's powerful swinging motions and the crane's evasiveness and precision strikes to vulnerable points. According to the White Crane (Pak Hok) Athletic Federation in Hong Kong, the style was developed secretively in Tibet during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Even though Lion's Roar traces its origins to Tibet and its descendant styles are nowadays practiced mainly in the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong, these styles are consistent with the martial arts of Northern China. White Crane style is very well known in Chinese martial arts circles, emphasizing high steps, sweeping diversions of attacks with the arms for defense and high kicks and strikes with the elbows, fingers (in the form of 'the crane's beak') and wrists for offense. Lama Pai oral history maintains that, in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Lion's Roar spread to Northern China and incorporated the techniques of the martial arts there, explaining its Northern Chinese characteristics. In some ways, Lama Pai, Tibetan White Crane, and Hop Gar take the distinguishing characteristics of Northern Chinese martial arts (fully extended arms, mobility, high kicks) even further than those arts themselves do and may be a source of the Northern characteristics found in the Southern Chinese martial arts of Guangdong.

Wang Yan-Lam was the eldest of the Ten Tigers of Canton, a group of ten of the top martial arts masters in Guangdong towards the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). One of his fellow Tigers was Wong Kei-Ying, father of the famous Wong Fei-Hung. Father and son, both masters of Hung Kuen, exchanged knowledge with other martial artists, including Wong Yan-Lam, which would explain why the crane techniques of their Hung Kuen lineage—which emphasize one-legged stances, kicks, and the crane's beak hand formation—are closer to Tibetan White Crane than to Hung Kuen Crane's supposed roots in Fujian White Crane, whose isometric exercises and firmly rooted, pigeon-toed stances show greater affinity with the Kiu Sau exercises and Iron Wire Fist of Hung Kuen than with its crane techniques. According to Lama Pai oral history, Wong Fei-Hung learned from Wong Yan-Lam the long arm techniques found in the Tiger Crane Paired Form Fist and the Five Element techniques found in the Five Animal Five Element Fist in return for the Five Animal techniques found in the Small Five Animal Fist of Yan-Lam and his descendants. By contrast, "village" styles of Hung Kuen do not show signs of influence from Lama Pai/Hop Gar/Tibetan White Crane and are more characteristic of Southern Chinese martial arts.