It’s been on your list for awhile. You have been wanting to find your family in Japan for awhile now, but something else keeps comes up.

You don’t speak or read the language. You are not sure where to begin…so you hesitate.

Let me light a fire under you and give you some motivation to get started and not delay any longer.

Recent changes in Japanese koseki records are the number 1 reason not to put it off any longer.

Koseki records are being updated into easier to kanji to read – the problem is they are not including all the information that was once on the original record. Right now you can request the old version, the one that is written in hard to decipher ancient characters but rich in family history information. How much longer the old version will be available is uncertain.

Also, it has been reported that older koseki are being destroyed. This makes my heart break at the thought. All that history lost.

So, unless things change – the clock is ticking. GET IT DONE NOW!

If you need help in finding your ancestry, locating your ancestor’s city hall or translating your records, contact me and lets get started before time runs out.  Email me at: valerie@advantageGenealogy.com.

Find your family and your heritage. Time waits for no one.

Japanese Buddhist Temple picture taken by: Valerie Elkins

It is common practice for Japanese to be married in a Shinto (religion) wedding and buried as a Buddihist. Kakko-cho or Japanese Buddhist Temple Records are a source of records that can take your family history research back beyond the 1872 beginning of the koseki records.

Frequent fires to Buddhist temples have destroyed many such records, but are worth investigating.   Determining if there are Samurai ancestors can be confirmed in these records, as these records have not had this information deleted as it has from the koseki records.

Problems in Obtaining Kakko-cho:

• Organized by death or funeral date, rather than by family name
• Same desire to protect privacy means that same need to document your                                                      right to access records
• Finding what Buddhist temple your family belonged and their address
• At death, the deceased is given a new Buddhist name that they are known by

Benefits of Obtaining a Kakko-cho

• Once you find the temple, gain access, find your ancestor you can go back many                                        more generations
• Able to locate your family’s ohaka (gravestones) that may be engraved with more genealogical       information.
• Families rarely changed temples. Usually, the closest one to their registered home of record making the search process a little easier.

Once you have located your family’s temple, contact the priest and find out the requirements for accessing the records. These are valuable records and worth the effort in obtaining. Good Luck!

BIG NEWS!!! I will be presenting “Finding Your Japanese Ancestors” at the  National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference in Las Vegas, NV,  May 8-11, 2013.                                                        I will be scheduling a limited number  of private consultations during that week. This conference would be an excellent opportunity to learn how to:

• Research your Japanese family tree
• Get your questions answered
• Receive personal assistance

If interested in securing a consult, email me at info@AdvantageGenealogy.com.

In search for your Japanese ancestors, let me warn against sites that promise that you can find your Japanese ancestors in Japan on their fee based database sites. NO ONLINE DATABASES have your family’s vital records from Japan on their site! They may have some records that a VERY members have entered, but this is rare.

I can understand why those of Japanese decent are not more interested in family history…it is so hard to do if you do not have someone helping you to do it. With companies promising resources that they do not have, it  is easy to get frustrated and want to give up.  Go to a Family History Center and use those databases for free first, see what, if any information they have, that maybe can help you before paying for a service.

Online databases like WorldVirtalRecords.com and Ancestry.com are really only helpful in finding your ancestors information once the left Japan, not for those who remained in Japan. For that you will have to go through the steps outlined in this blog, or you can find the steps outlined on www.wiki.FamilySearch.org and type in “Japan” in the search bar. The wiki has quite a bit of information, a lot of which I have contributed, so please check  it out.

In the meantime, do not give up! It is possible, you just have to hang in there! Ganbatte ne!

Most of the people I help locate their Japanese ancestors are 3rd, 4th and even 5th generation Japanese. Some of those I assist are only part Japanese, but many are  still a 100% Japanese by blood. All desire to know more about their Japanese ancestors, but are baffled on how to begin.

Since many Japanese Americans have been in America for generations and most likely do not have the ability to speak or read the language, they often feel at a loss at where to even begin to find their Japanese heritage. Here are a few pointers to get you started:

• Researching your family tree is the same for you as any other American UNTIL your immigrant ancestor. So look in the same places: FamilySearch, Ancestry, are good choices to search for census records, passenger records and vital records.
• Just like any immigrant from any country looking to doing research in their mother country, you will have to know the town, village,and address, etc. that they came from, otherwise its a needle in a very big haystack. And unlike many countries, Japanese vital records are not available online and are restricted to only those who can prove direct lineage can have access. You will HAVE TO KNOW the address from where they came from, especially if they came from a big city. You can’t just say Kobe and expect to find the exact city hall (large cities have dozens) and be able to locate the records.
• Where can you find the address if you don’t know? Ask older aunts, uncles and other relatives. Look for anything in anyone’s possession that might have Japanese writing on it. Many people have a koseki record and don’t know what it is because it can look unimportant with all its boxes on it, often with some crossed out, older ones printed on a tissue type of paper, or some are purple mimeograph copies. OMGosh, dance if you find one of those! Eureka, or BONZAI since we are talking Japanese here. You hit the mother lode!
• Other sources to check for addresses are: passports, Naturalization records, internment camp records, military records, passenger records and personal letters.
• Small older villages may have been swallowed up by bigger cities and towns, you can still locate them. Try Wikipedia on the village name, you may have to try searching it in Japanese and then use a translation to read it.

In some ways doing Japanese records may seem harder, but the effort is soooo worth the effort!

Don’t get discouraged! It is possible and if you need help, I would be glad to get you going or assist you in anyway.

Here are some frequent questions about Japanese family history research that you might have as well. Hope these answers help you in your quest to find your ancestry in Japan.

I can’t find any online sources for my Japanese ancestors. Do you know any I can search?

Unfortunately there are none. Japan has very strict privacy laws and only direct line ancestors can access their records. You can use online sources like Ancestry.com to find your ancestors once they came to America though. This can help you locate their hometown in Japan, which you will need to know to find the family household registers or koseki.

What information do I need to provide to obtain a copy of my family household register or koseki?

In orders to gain access you to your ancestor’s records you to prove that you are in fact a direct descendant of the person you are requesting information about. You will need to provide the following:

• First and last name of the ancestor you are requesting information about.
• The ancestor’s address and hometown city hall of record.
• Picture ID, your passport or driver’s licence are acceptable.
• Your birth certificate (certified copy is fine)
• Birth certificates of your parents and grandparents until the immigrant ancestor. You do not need one if they were born in Japan, but you do if they weren’t.
• Pedigree chart filled out and highlighted on the chart, showing the ancestor you are seeking information on.
• Currently it is $13US for copies and postage of a koseki record. You must use a US Money Order – not your banks!
• A request form and letter regarding what you are requesting and why.
• Return self-addressed envelope

All of these forms should be written or translated into Japanese. If you write them in English, there is no telling when or if you will get a response, even having it written in Japanese a response can take a few weeks to a few months.

I only know the name of my ancestor and that he came from Tokyo? Can I find his record?

Every Japanese citizen has a hometown city hall of record and this central location is were all their family household records are kept.

Tokyo city has over 6o city hall offices and there is no central database that links them or allows searches of other office’s records. You would literally have to contact each and every office.

Also, many Japanese moved to Tokyo for employment, but they were actually born somewhere else and often their hometown is where their records are still housed, even though they moved to Tokyo.

In order to narrow it down you will have to do more searching for the actual address of your ancestor while in Japan. Old passports, old letters or documents could give you this, as well as passenger ship records sometimes hold clues to this information.

Gaining access to your ancestor’s records in Japan can be challenging and difficult, but it can be done. Finding your ancestor’s records are a wealth of knowledge about your family and heritage and worth every effort!

As the Japanese say, ganbatte! Which means ‘hang in there – you can do this!’

Contact me if you need help or have more questions!

Why did a Japanese person leave Japan for the US? Usually the Japanese male was a younger son and not the family heir. Immigrants from Japan began coming to the US in the 1880s. There was a demand for workers for mining, railroad and farm labor, but many found jobs as cooks, waiters, hotel staff and other type jobs in cities. The young Japanese males came to the Western United States not only seeking a job, but opportunity. While Japanese generally moved to the west coast, some did find job opportunities in the Midwest as well. It is a myth that these were the very poor. To immigrate cost money and many were well educated.

Due to the US public’s fear of loss of jobs and the increasing numbers of Japanese immigrants, state laws were passed to prohibit the Japanese immigrants from purchasing land. The 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement prohibited the migration of male laborers to the US, but allowed wives and children of those immigrants already here to immigrate.

Loopholes in the Agreement prompted unmarried Japanese in the US to seek mail order brides from Japan and thousands of these brides arrived between 1908 and 1924. The National Origins Act effectively closed all immigration from Japan to the United States.

When searching for your ancestors a good place to start is to search  passenger lists. Sometimes the male immigrant would return to Japan and marry a “hometown” girl arranged by his and her families and then he would return with her to America. Sometimes they were married by proxy and she went alone or she came unmarried to America and then was married on her arrival. It is important to search for both her married name and under her maiden name. Many times you can find the couple years later, returning to Japan with their children for a family visit. The visit may have been brought about by the death of a parent. All of things things can give you clues in your research.

Despite the obvious fact that Japanese writing or kana looks like the tracks of a drunken chicken – reading Japanese is even more difficult than you might think …even for the Japanese!

The Japanese have 3 alphabets; kanji which are the characters that were borrowed from the Chinese centuries ago. Hiragana which is used in adding grammatical endings to the kanji, as well as being used for children’s writing and commericals, etc. Then there is katakana which is generally used for foreign words (non-Japanese) and as far as it relates to genealogy, it is used to spell out a person’s name if the writer is unsure of the correct kanji to use.

Japanese calligraphy is an art...so is reading it!

To graduate from high school, a Japanese student would need to know 1850 kanji, as well as the hiragana and katakana characters – which are a lot fewer, but he will have to know over 3000 kanji for college. Compare that to only 26 letters we need to know in English! But it is not just the sheer number of characters that is so daunting, but the many, many different ways those characters can be read! For example, a character may be called shi, but may not may not be pronounced as shi. And kanji can be read differently depending on the time in history, the geographic area or the preference for use, i.e. the last name Usami for instance can also be read and pronounced as Usagi.

Japanese writing system or kana, has changed a lot over the years. Japanese under the age of 60 or so, probably cannot read many of the characters that are written on the old koseki without a lot of practice, and special kanji dictionaries. While I speak Japanese and can read hiragana and katakana alphabets as well as some kanji characters, it would never be enough to accurately translate a koseki. Which is why I hire native Japanese translators to translate old Japanese records for me. They have the skill to read older kana … but just so you know, even they have a hard time with some of the translations! Older koseki records were written by hand – so imagine adding poor, or unusual penmanship written in small little boxes into the equation!

Example of Japanese character changes over the years

So what’s the bottom line? I don’t think you will ever get a good and accurate translation of records from Google Translate! Find an older, native Japanese person, or at least a very skilled younger one to translate for you. When you are doing your family’s genealogy you will need an accurate translation to do further research. Sorry, if I discouraged you – but reading the tracks of a drunk chicken would really be easier!

Almost all Japanese families somewhere on their family tree you will find adoptions. It is necessary to understand that these are usually “heir adoptions” and are different than what we understand in the western world adoptions.

Samurai Warrior

It was common practice for Japanese to adopt another adult male or older child/teen, if no male heirs were present in a family. Often the case is an arranged marriage between the head of household’s eldest daughter and the 2nd or 3rd son from another (possibly related) family. Upon their marriage, the groom would take the bride’s maiden name as his own and would become her father’s heir and now his name would be added to her family’s koseki. If they divorced (which could happen if no male heir was produced) his rights to her family’s estate would be returned, he would resume his own name and return to his birth family and again to be recorded under the head of his former household’s koseki.

Heir adoption was mandatory in cases of an elderly widow who had no children. If she did not have an heir and could not because of poverty, the local authorities would provide one for her or the estate would be forfeit. Often her estate would include the family butsudan, a family alter or shrine in a special cabinet where ancestor memorials are kept and where they worship. While having a butsudan is part of the Japanese Buddhist faith, 90% of the rural Japanese homes still contain them.

Butsudan

Shinto Wedding

A father who had many sons might look to his acquaintances and extended family who were without heirs and for a sum of money they would adopt the child. Adoption was the easiest way to secure the child’s future. The child would then be raised up to not only be heir but be trained in his adopted father’s profession. The mourning period for adopted parents was the same as for birth parents.

These name changes and family changes that are recorded on the family’s koseki can quickly become confusing. Using a genealogy software program is really necessary to keep track of these changes and distinguish between direct lineage and adopted lineage. Adoptions were very common and frequent in all families and all classes.

Clients often ask me whose line should they follow, especially when the family name they inherited may be an “adopted” name. I usually recommend following the blood line. Unlike American adoption where it is usually secretive and difficult to find the birth parents, Japanese koseki records will record who the birth parents were and since they [the clients] are a direct decedent, they can have access to the records after proving their lineage.

If you are interested in reading more about heir adoptions you can read about it here.

The short answer is keizu. The longer answer is not so easy. There several reasons why it is difficult for those of Japanese ancestry living outside of Japan to trace their lineage. One of the main reasons is a lack of understanding of the language. I am not going to sugar coat it, learning Japanese is hard, BUT learning how to pronounce it is not.

There are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese. They are always pronounced the same unlike in English! Vowel lengths are all uniformly short:

You do not need to know everything in Japanese but learning some genealogical terms is helpful.

Glossary of Japanese genealogical terms to begin building your vocabulary.

• koseki ~  household register, includes everyone in a household under the head of house (who usually was male)
• koseki tohon ~ certified copy which recorded everything from the original record.
• koseki shohon ~ certified copy which recorded only parts from the original.
• joseki ~ expired register in which all persons originally entered have been removed because of death, change of residence, etc. A joseki file is ordinarily available for  80 years after its expiration.
• kaisei genkoseki ~ revised koseki
• honseki ~ permanent residence or registered address (i.e. person may move to Tokyo but their records remain in hometown city hall).
• genseki ~ another name for honseki
• kakocho ~ Buddist death register
• kaimyo ~ Buddist name given to deceased person and recorded in kakocho.
• homyo ~ Buddist name given to living converts, similar to homyo.
• kuni ~ country or nation
• ken ~ prefecture
• shi ~ city
• gun ~ county
• to ~ metropolitan prefecture (Tokyo-to). Similar to ken.
• do ~ urban prefecture (Hokkaido). Similar to ken.
• fu ~ urban prefecture (Kyoto-fu, Osaka-fu) similar to ken.
• ku ~ ward in some large cities (Sapparo, Sendai, Tokyo) divided in to town (cho).
• cho ~ town
• aza ~unorganized district
• machi ~ town within a city (cho) or ward (ku), town within a county (gun).
• chome ~ smaller division of a town (cho) in some neighborhoods.
• mura or son ~ village within a county (gun).
• koshu or hittousha or stainushi ~ head of household, the head of the family
• zen koshu ~ former head of household
• otto ~ husband
• tsuma  ~ wife
• chichi or fu ~ father
• haha or bo ~ mother
• sofu ~ grandfather
• sobo ~ grandmother
• otoko or dan or nan ~ male, man, son
• onna or jo ~ female, woman, daughter
• ani or kei or kyou ~ older brother
• otouto or tei ~ younger brother
• ane or shi ~ older sister
• imouto or mai ~ younger sister
• mago or son ~ grandchild
• himago or souson ~ great-grandchild
• oi ~ nephew
• mei ~ niece
• youshi ~ adopted child or son
• youjo ~ adopted daughter
• muko youshi ~ a man without sons may adopt his eldest daughter’s husband as his own son and the young man will take his wife’s surname and be listed on her family’s koseki
• seimei or shime ~ full name, family name
• shussei or shusshou ~ birth
• shibou ~ deceased
• nen or toshi ~ year
• gatsu, getsu or tsuki ~ month
• hi or nichi or ka ~ day
• ji or toki ~ hour, time
• sai or toshi ~ age
• issei ~ person born in Japan and later immigrate elsewhere
• nisei ~ child/generation of issei and born outside of Japan
• sansei ~ child/generation of nisei and born outside of Japan
• yonsei ~ child/generation of sansei and born outside of Japan
• gosei ~ child/generation of yonsei and born outside of Japan

There is another Japanese term you really need to know. It is ganbatte which means ‘hang in there’ or ‘do your best’ and either one is will work.

Japan has experienced disasters before. During WWII the 82 day Battle of Okinawa or tetsu no ami [rain of steel] ended with 90% of all the buildings on Okinawa Japan being destroyed. This means the city halls with all the koseki records were destroyed.

Photo by Sgt. Willard Chamberlin

Only those people who remained after the war and rebuilt their family records have their records preserved there now. The Okinawans who left for other countries have no records to find. My heart always drops when a client tells me their ancestor came from Okinawa prefecture as I have yet to being successful in finding records that survived and were rebuilt – I remain hopeful though.

I won’t go into the human costs of this war or other disasters occurring right now in Japan because my emotions are too tender to go there. I know people personally effected by the devastation of the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disasters and my heart aches for them.

So for this post I will keep it academic and discuss how to protect your records from a disaster.

1. Don’t keep your records (birth, death, marriage and other important documents) in one place! Now granted, we all don’t live in a tsunami zone, but what about fire? I think my family’s court house in Alabama must have had a target on it, as it burned more times than I can rightly recall (even after the Civil War). We all take for granted the security of a safety-deposit box at a bank, but after the latest tragedy in Japan, that option would not have done them any good. Even a safe in your own home is not the perfect answer. Ideally, I want you to not feel safe with only using one or 2 options, but a variety.
   

   Saito town in Japan totally destroyed.

2. Use the Cloud. Scan the documents and pictures and email them to yourself and/or use an off-site server like Carbonite to backup your documents, pictures and important family history files.
3. Make an emergency backup of files on several flashdrives and keep them where you can retrieve them quickly. Maybe keep one in an emergency backpack if you have to leave in a hurry because a railroad car derailed a mile away with toxic gas leaking and the neighborhood is being evacuated until further notice - it happened near us once. Keep another with someone you trust, who lives in another city like your parents or a safety deposit box in their town’s bank.
4. Store the originals in one place and in archival safe vinyl sleeves.
5. Let someone, a lawyer or executor for your estate know where you keep the records.

These records are more than just dates and facts. They document our lives. The destruction of  both personal and public archives through natural disasters or state archives/libraries in danger of closing due to lack of funding (just Google: libraries closing lack of funding and be very amazed) all mean one thing…lack of primary source documents and lack of access for all of us.

Being a genealogist and seeing the destruction of documents and records, whether willingly, neglectfully or accidentally is tragic. There is a saying “If you are prepared, you shall not fear.” Let us go forward not with fear, but with wisdom and order. -Let us gather our records in one place, -let’s scan and digitize them, – let’s store them off-sight and  -let us make duplicate copies stored in a variety of locations and then -let us tell someone we trust where that is.

I pray that our lives may be spared the tragedy we have witnessed in Japan, but there are things we can do when bad things happen, to not make it worse.

To those who have ancestors in Japan and have been putting off finding them, I suggest not postponing this any longer. Your family’s records are found in only one place on the planet – your ancestor’s hometown city hall. I recommend you move to find those records and obtain them for you and your children and grandchildren. Do not live to regret not doing this sooner.

To donate to help those in Japan where 100% of the donations go to help all the victims in Japan, please click here.