日系 Nikkei Ancestry

Why I started these pages!

Just a little about Nikkei Ancestry the web page, forum and now this blog. The original research page [genealogy] was a web page I started which evolved into the Japanese Genealogy Research and Records page. This page evolved into the Nikkei Ancestry Forum, using PHP-Fusion formerly Japanese Genealogy Research Forum.

I’ve always been a curious person, and suppose that comes with being a human being with interests. Though, my father didn‘t talk about family much, so I set out on my own to learn about my own family history. I‘ve been researching my family history probably since 1988, when I was living in Japan while serving in the Marine Corps. I send a letter to my father asking were his dad had come from, and he didn‘t know, he only said somewhere around Kobe which wasn‘t really to far from where I was stationed. I left Japan without knowing or being able to visit the area of where my grandfather had come from. I was disappointed because that seemed like a lost opportunity.

When I came home I had sent a letter to one of my aunts by marriage to my father ‘s brother, and asked her some family information. My aunt sent me a family group list of my father ‘s siblings and grandparents, which gave me the place where my grandfather had come from. I was like wow, because when I left Japan I flew out of Osaka, which was probably about 30 minutes by train from that town or village, my grandfather came from…

I think this experience made me search more about my family on both sides, and I‘ve been doing it ever since.

It ‘s hard to research Japanese records if we don ‘t speak or write the language, and it ‘s also hard to find some one that might help us translate those records for a nominal fee. Even though I studied Japanese in College, which was in the early 80 ‘s, and I very seldom used it. Researching made me relearn some of what I do know, but it could take me weeks to translate a letter, and even that would not be totally accurate. Finding help in this area seemed difficult in the early 90 ‘s with no information or web sites available.

My initial help came from a guy name Mr. Brady, who had sent me a two-page information sheet and a form to make my requests to Japan for the Koseki [family records]. I was able to make my requests and get some records and upon further research I was able to get most if not all of the records available for my family genealogy. Now onto getting them translated. Fortunately, while working at Kaiser Hospital, a coworker was able to help me translate names and dates.

All this and the difficulty in doing Japanese genealogy and with no information out their I decided to create a web page with information on how to do your Japanese genealogy with links to other pages related to genealogy in America and other sources for information. I hope I was able to give some help to people doing their own research. As always the hardest part was the translations and getting some one to help with that. From this came the forum, this forum was created to be a peer to peer support group because I don’t know everything, and it would provide a place for other ‘s to post messages and reply to posts if they thing they could help. I think that worked, but I think most people just have a curiosity of wanting to know that information and don ‘t really keep it up with the research. I decided to do this blog, for posting articles and perhaps other stories related to genealogy and Japan. People can make comments here, but if they require more help, they can go to the forum where they can log in security to the site and communicate with other’s live about their research, and post images that are helpful in the researching process.

Over all if you like what you find here, stop on by the Forum, and register for a secure login account. Once you register it may take awhile to confirm your registration because it is done manually. Doing it this way eliminates the Spam bots that continue to register if left in automatic registrations.

Please support this blog and the forum by purchasing from our book store, or t-shirt shop.

So, enjoy and have fun learning about your family’s history.

Thank you,

Tedd Kawakami
Nikkei Ancestry: Japanese Genealogy Research Forum & Blog

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