Researching Japanese-American Family History

Example of koseki
(Japanese family registry)

A few years ago I volunteered and worked with a group that was bringing genealogy into schools and social agency programs, trying to interest the younger generation in researching family history.  The outreach during the first couple of years focused on the black community.  It was then decided that we expand our outreach to other groups.  One suggestion was the Japanese-American community, but we ended up not pursuing that, primarily because Japanese family history research can be difficult and we knew of no good resources for beginners.

Well, Japanese family history is still difficult to research, but now I know about a very handy reference for people who are getting started.  Linda Harms Okazaki has created a six-page guide, Finding Your Japanese Roots, in a laminated trifold layout.  It is focused on Japanese-American research, finding records in the United States, and then working back to finding records in japan.

The guide provides a quick overview of important history to keep in mind when conducting your research, types of records to look for in the U.S. and Japan, a glossary, a comprehensive list of online resources, and several short tips.  Most of the information is clear and to the point, but some items would benefit from a little clarity, due in part to the need to be very concise because of the limited space.

The short introduction explains circumstances and records specific to Japanese-American research.  In particular, the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, while a heinous tragedy, created records that can be extremely detailed and informative.

The timeline Linda has created fits an amazing number of important dates into a small space, but a critical fact was omitted.  She included the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act that allowed Asian immigrants to become citizens but did not mention that laws enacted at various earlier times (usually during wartime) allowed Asians who served in the U.S. military to naturalize prior to that.

The records discussed are divided into conventional U.S. records, records unique to Japanese-Americans, and conventional Japanese records, and the lists appear to give a good overview.  One record type for those unique to Japanese-Americans seems to have accidentally been left out, however.  There are two references to "Evacuee Case Files" in the descriptions of other records, but there's no entry for the Evacuee Case Files themselves.

Some phrasing is misleading.  A reference to delayed birth certificates as a resource suggests that these exist only for Hawai'i and pre-1906 San Francisco.  Certainly, the majority of Japanese immigrants in the United States were probably in California and Hawai'i, but some were in other locations that either required vital records registration at later dates or simply didn't come near complete compliance for many years.  Delayed birth registration is something to consider through the early 1940's for anywhere in the U.S.  Another statement that would benefit from rephrasing is in the introduction, which states that "American-born women who married Japanese immigrants lost their citizenship until 1931", implying that this was always the case.  It only began in 1907, however.

As Linda is producing and distributing her guide on her own, she makes it in small batches and updates it on an ongoing basis.  Some of the minor problems I have mentioned here will undoubtedly be corrected in an upcoming print run.  If you would like to talk to her about getting a copy, she can be reached at LindaHOkazaki@gmail.com.

Full disclosure:  The copy of Finding Your Japanese Roots that I used for this review was given to me by Linda.

Immigration Stories at Angel Island

Ayala Cove

After 24 years of living in the San Francisco Bay area, I finally visited Angel Island last week.  I have been wanting to go for several years but somehow never managed to schedule it.  Luckily for me, the California Genealogical Society (CGS) coordinated a family history event this year for Family History Month — plus asked me to help find someone to speak about Jewish immigration through the island — so circumstances worked in my favor.  It was also a "chamber of commerce day" — gorgeous weather, clear blue sky, the kind of day convention and visitors bureaus send out their photographers to take promotional shots.  The ferry ride from Oakland to the island (with a change of boats at the Ferry Building in San Francisco) was very enjoyable, and there was even a great view of the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge on the return trip.

Barracks (front) and Hospital (rear)

The station has several points of interest.  CGS posted a helpful map of the station online.  There are informative signs throughout the area, describing not only the buildings (and former buildings) but also activities of people who were held on the island.  Just inside the gated entrance are what remains of employee cottages that were designed by the famed architect Julia Morgan.  It's a shame they didn't survive.

China Cove and the Immigration Station

Down by the water at China Cove was the dock where immigrants arrived (it was torn down years ago).  An administrative building used to be there also, but all that's left now is part of the foundation, showing the footprint of where the building was.  A fire in 1940 destroyed the building and caused the closure of the station.  A small plaza and an Immigrant Heritage Wall have been built at the cove as part of the renovation of the park.  Nearby is the hospital, which is not open to the general public yet but is under renovation and scheduled to open in 2016.  While we were there a group of nurses was given a private tour of the hospital.

Immigration Barracks

The two buildings that are currently open are the main immigration barracks and a World War II mess hall.  Several interesting displays, mostly about Chinese immigration, were set up in the immigration barracks for the family history event.  One of the docents had brought a lot of his own materials to share with attendees, and one of the speakers brought her research documents.  There were also tables with informational material from CGS and the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society.

Mess Hall

The mess hall is where the presentations took place.  Grant Din (staff at the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation) and Kay Speaks (genealogist) spoke about their Chinese ancestors who were processed at Angel Island.  Roslyn Tonai (executive director of the National Japanese American Historical Society) talked about her mother's family, Japanese immigrants who came through here.  And Maria Sakovich (independent researcher) described the paths across Europe and Asia that Jewish immigrants took during World War I and II that led them to Angel Island.  All of the speakers had interesting stories, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn from them.

In a nice bit of serendipity a woman who works at the Tenement Museum in New York City happened to be on the island as part of her vacation in California.  She is very interested in genealogy outside of her job, and she was thrilled to find out that there was a family history event going on.  We had trouble deciding who the biggest genealogy geek was.

I am happy I had the opportunity to visit Angel Island because my stepsons' grandfather, who was from Punjab, India, came through the island when he arrived in the United States in the 1920's.  Through research I have learned he was not detained, even though Indians were classifed similarly to Chinese (as "Asians" under the Chinese Exclusion Act), because he came as a student, not an immigrant.  But just knowing that he went through there made the visit special.

CGS has posted several excellent photographs of the day taken by Judy Bodycote on its blog.

The one flaw in my day was the climb from the ferry dock at Ayala Cove to the immigration station.  I swear I was told it was about a mile, but it's actually closer to a mile and a half, and most of it is uphill.  My poor little old knees were not happy.  The next time I go to Angel Island, I think I'll take the tram to the immigration station instead.

When Names and Languages Collide

1803 obituary of Justus Fox

When doing family history research, I often caution people not to worry about spelling.  Until well into the 20th century, most people were either poorly educated or functionally illiterate.  Spelling was done phonetically, and a person's name could be spelled multiple ways within one document.  In the United States, one of the things that helped codify spelling was passage of the Social Security Act.  Suddenly you had to prove you were a specific person, the same person every time.  Consistent spelling made that a lot easier.

But what if the problem isn't spelling, but pronunciation?  I traced one of my family lines back to a man named Justus Fox in Philadelphia.  He was born in one of the German states and immigrated to the British colonies in North America around 1750.  The family name was formerly Fuchs and was Anglicized to Fox.

When I began to find information about Justus Fox, my mind automatically pronounced his name as "justice."  My first language is American English, and it came naturally.  But then I started thinking about it.  "Justice" (which I have seen spelled as Justus) is seen as a given name in today's society, but it didn't make sense for a German-born man in the mid-18th century.  And then I started to think about German pronunciation.  The letter J does not sound the same as in English.  It has a Y sound; for example, the German word for yes, ja, is pronounced "ya" in English.  When I applied that logic to my ancestor's name, I got "yustus" and was easily able to figure out that Justus is the German equivalent of the name Eustace.  I also found there have been many well known men named Justus.

Another instance of pronunciation affecting research was when I was working on my half-sister's family.  Her mother's ancestry was all Irish all day long, both sides.  My sister's grandmother had done some work, which my sister gave me as a starting point.  Her grandmother didn't have many documents but had written down what information she knew about births, marriages, deaths, and family stories.  One story her grandmother wrote about was a portrait of her mother that had been painted by a Mr. O'Kane.  I thought it was interesting but, beyond wondering whether the portrait was still in the family somewhere, it didn't seem like anything that would help with my research.

I started looking for the family in censuses and found several I was sure were the correct people.  But I found one I wasn't sure about.  The husband was gone, which was plausible.  The mother, listed as a widow, looked right, and one person listed as her child seemed to be correct, but another person that should have been a child was listed last in the household as a boarder.  But all of the names were common Irish ones, and I didn't see enough for me to make a determination.  So I saved that census and looked for other documents.

One day I pulled out the census page again and tried to figure out if there were other clues I could use to decide if it was the right family.  This time I looked at all of the boarders listed in the household.  The name Okane caught my eye, and I remembered the story about the portrait.  When I read the rest of the line, I discovered the individual was a boarder, Japanese — and a painter.  My sister's grandmother probably interpreted the name Okane in the context of her Irish background and thought it was Irish, with an O'.  But now I'm pretty sure that I found the right family.

Do you have any interesting or entertaining pronunciation stories from your research?  Or am I the only geek who thinks this way?