Do you have a link for this?
I was wrong about the dates. It was late 1700s not late 1800s.
This paper is the one I read. It is a book review: https://academia.edu/resource/work/40611694
The book being reviewed is titled, Forging the Golden Urn: the Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet. Max Oidtmann
Do you have a link for this?