Are there some family tree records held by the Japanese government and are they accessible?
Hello,
I have a question about genealogical records in Japan. I was told by an uncle living there that my family happens to have an actual family tree document. This particular uncle, however, has since lost his copy of this document, yet suggested that perhaps it might be obtained through a government agency.
It was my understanding, as I have been told since I was a child, that my family can trace their heritage back several hundred years based on records at the Buddhist temple in Miyazaki Prefecture in Kyushu. Unfortunately, none of my family members have any interest in genealogy, thinking it to be a trifling activity, and are not willing to help me recover such records -- save for the occasional anecdote and the mentioning of a more official family tree document. Moreover, I cannot imagine simply going to a Buddhist temple in Kyushu and being able to easily extract documents. For that matter, gathering a family tree from government records seems far more practical.
My question is the following: might such a family tree styled document available in government records actually exist and have other people had access to such documents? I understand that not all families would have had a family tree nor access to such a thing since surnames were limited to specific families until the Meiji era, so I'm guessing this is for certain cases.
I believe my uncle was not speaking specifically of a koseki because I happen to already have one that shows at least 2 generations of my family (it’s only 2 generations because they moved from Miyazaki to Tokyo during Meiji and all other sources would be in Kyushu). In addition, I do have a few pages of a Buddhist document that seems to be a kakocho, though it looks a little different from others I’ve previously seen and it’s fairly small.
I will say, I have seen an example of a family tree style document in existence. For instance, here is a family tree document for the Musashi Shichito in the National Diet Library:
http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2538326
Granted this example is of a famous family from the Kamakura period.
However, I’m assuming whatever document my uncle was talking about is not likely going to be in public records so easily attainable online. In addition, would such a family tree document only be accessible by one of my family members in Japan and would only someone like my uncle or mother be able to access it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
Ryan
답변들
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Hi, Ryan, I will be interested in looking into your family tree. To do that, I would like to get more information from Koseki you have.
If you are interested, will you personal message me by clicking my name to send private message?
By the way, I do Japanese Genealogy research at Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
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