Dictionaries, Local Histories and Removed Family Registers Cannot Be Taken at Face Value

People Who Take Print, Television and Professors at Face Value

There are quite a few people who read something in print, whether in a book or online, and assume that what is written must be true. In particular, when they find a passage in a local history or a specialist book that suits their own view, some quote it eagerly or use it as the basis of their own theory without checking how the author reached that conclusion. Quite a few people also assume that what they saw on television programs, such as documentaries and infotainment shows, or, worse, in historical novels such as those of Shiba Ryōtarō or in historical dramas such as the NHK Taiga dramas, is fact.

However, in addition to problems with the validity of the underlying data, printed text may contain erroneous entries of fact or misunderstandings by the author, as well as miswriting and miscopying. Being in print does not make something true. It is common for established theories to be overturned by new discoveries or new interpretations.

As the fact that the starting year of the Kamakura shogunate was moved several years earlier than the former theory shows, the same applies to local histories. In particular, many old documents were written in cursive script (kuzushiji), so misreadings and miscopying easily occur.

It goes without saying how strange it is to mistake fiction for truth, but the influence of moving images is immeasurable. In any case, television programs are put together with embellishments to entertain and attract viewers, and even if experts ask for corrections after a broadcast, the corrections do not necessarily reach viewers who have already believed it.

“A professor from a top university says so” is not a reason to believe something either. Professors from top universities often put forward different theories, that is, different interpretations, on the same subject, and in such cases the criterion “a professor from a top university says so” cannot tell you which one is correct.

Results from Research Companies Cannot Be Taken at Face Value Either

The same applies to the results delivered by an ancestry research company. There is the matter of the company’s research ability, but even if the ability is sufficient and great care is taken, documents that exist may simply happen not to be found. Do not forget that if the documents that were not found had been found, the result might have been different. “I asked an expert” or “I paid several hundred thousand yen for the research” is no reason at all to take the results at face value.

Dictionaries Cannot Be Taken at Face Value Either

Many people seem to believe unconditionally that the content of a dictionary is accurate fact, but dictionaries on family lines and family crests, beginning with the Seishi Kakei Daijiten (姓氏家系大辞典, “Great Dictionary of Family Names and Lineages”), cannot be taken at face value either.

A little imagination shows why. Just collecting information on tens of thousands of family names and crests is a huge task, and it is physically impossible to carry out the verification and scrutiny needed to guarantee the accuracy of each piece of information. Typographical errors, miswritings and erroneous entries of fact are entirely possible, and in the case of older dictionaries, later research results have not been reflected.

In the first place, even if tens of thousands of family names and crests are listed, they are limited to representative examples for each name and crest. They are only a small number of examples, and most family lines are not listed at all. Using a dictionary only as “hints for ancestry research” is absolutely necessary so as not to hand down mistaken information to relatives and descendants.

Local Materials Cannot Be Taken at Face Value Either

The same goes for local materials. Local histories in particular saw a boom in compilation around the 1970s, so they are only the interpretation at that time. In many regions scholarly research is not active, so even decades after publication their validity has not been verified, new discoveries and progress in research are not reflected, and some contain mistaken entries. Moreover, not a few were written by amateurs, such as local volunteers and high school teachers.

The people who took part in compiling local histories surely went to great trouble, but the idea that “it must be correct because a public body (the municipality) spent money to publish it” risks leading you to misjudge the facts.

Go to the Old Documents Behind a Statement Whenever Possible

Whenever possible, go to the old documents on which the local history’s statements are based, and examine the evidence for yourself.

Of course, the original documents themselves were written from the recorder’s own viewpoint and may be incomplete or contain erroneous entries of fact (jijitsu gonin kisai, 事実誤認記載), so what is recorded in them cannot be taken at face value either. Also, the further back you go, the fewer original documents survive, so there are many cases, like the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, where we have no choice but to rely on compilations. However, research books and local histories were written and compiled relatively recently, so it is rarely impossible to reach the documents they are based on, and since they were written long after the events they describe, you must consider for yourself whether their statements are a valid understanding. That is why the original documents are needed.

 

A Real Example of an Erroneous Entry of Fact in Local Materials

As an example of an erroneous entry of fact, there is Tochigi-ken Kyōiku-shi (栃木県教育史, “History of Education in Tochigi Prefecture”), Vol. 2, compiled by the Tochigi Prefecture Education History Compilation Committee, published by the Tochigi Prefecture Federation of Education Associations (1957), p. 173. It contains a statement about the family line of our director’s paternal grandmother. In fact, our director’s 6th-generation grandfather 白石立敬 died earlier than his 7th-generation grandfather 白石松立 (the correct parent-child relationship is 8th-generation grandfather 白石賢立, then 7th-generation grandfather 白石松立, then 6th-generation grandfather 白石立敬). The author of that book, however, looked only at the years of death and assumed that “the one who died first must be the parent,” and so recorded the parent-child relationship the other way around (making 立敬 the child of 賢立, and 松立 “his child,” that is, the child of 立敬. In other words, the line is recorded as 白石賢立, then 白石立敬, then 白石松立).

Removed Family Registers Cannot Be Taken at Face Value Either

Removed family registers (joseki-bo, 除籍簿) also need to be approached with doubt.

Example 1: The “U” Crown Became the “Wa” Crown

The Tomita family on our director’s paternal side is a branch of a branch, founded in the Meiji period, of the Aizu Tomita clan. In the Tomita-ke Nenpu (冨田家年譜, the family chronology) and in the Shūshin Kafu (衆臣家譜), a collection of genealogies of the retainers of the Sōma-Nakamura domain that the family served in the Edo period, the first character of the surname is written 富 with the “U” crown, whereas in the family register it is written 冨 with the “Wa” crown. According to our director’s grandfather, he thought it was written with the “U” crown until a teacher pointed it out when he was a student, so the Tomita family is considered to have believed for generations that it was 富 with the “U” crown. This was probably because the registry clerk wrote the “U” crown as the “Wa” crown by mistake, or the top dot was dropped at some point. So cases like this exist. Moreover, in the Edo and Meiji periods it was not unusual for the position of a radical to differ from writer to writer, so if you insist on treating, for example, the characters 崎, 﨑 and 嵜 (all read “saki”) as different things in your ancestry research, you may fail to find what is there. The same applies to 渡辺, 渡邉 and 渡邊 (Watanabe), and to 齊藤, 斎藤 and 斉藤 (Saitō).

Example 2: Characters That Look Alike in Cursive Script

There are two more examples of why you should doubt the characters in removed family registers. In one register, the character 岡 (oka) is used in the surname of our director’s 8th-generation grandfather. When we did a field survey, however, that name was not found among the present residents or in the land ledger, whereas a surname using the character 宮 (miya) did exist, so it seemed the character was probably 宮. In cursive script, the character 岡 looks very much like 宮. In standard script they are completely different characters, so we modern people think they look nothing alike, but during the period when registry clerks wrote the registers by hand, it was entirely possible to misread cursive script and write a different character. Of course, in a relatively close family line, if such an error existed, there would probably be at least a family saying such as “our real surname is actually such-and-such.” But when searching for the ancestors of a family line that has no contact at all and appears only in the oldest removed family registers, the possibility of such miscopying by the registry clerk must also be considered.

Example 3: Uemon and Saemon

In another example, the same person was recorded as 右衛門 (Uemon) in one removed family register, but as 左衛門 (Saemon) in the previous one, and the question was which was correct. This is thought to be simple miscopying, but as a researcher I was at a loss as to which was right. Fortunately, in this case a descendant family was found and it turned out to be “Saemon,” but it was troublesome to explain each time that it might be “Uemon,” and to search for “Uemon” as well. If only a removed family register recording “Uemon” had existed, I do not know whether I could have found the correct “Saemon.” If the descendant family had believed the register, we might even have been told, “Perhaps you want a different household?”

Summary

As shown above, taking something at face value just because it is in print is an extremely dangerous attitude. When reading materials and research books, you should strictly separate “facts”, which do not change whoever the author is, from “interpretations and evaluations”, which may change depending on the author, and you should also carefully check whether the “facts” themselves contain erroneous entries of fact, miscopying or miswriting. “Interpretations and evaluations” should be regarded only as reference opinions, not as facts.

Of course, Japanese history spans more than 2,000 years, and following even that much time is hard. Since time passes not at a single point but across the whole country, the range becomes enormous, and it is almost impossible for a human being to collect all the documents and records, scrutinize them from scratch and gain insight into history. Therefore, considering the results of previous research is indispensable. However, previous research too has new theories proposed over time, and when one becomes widely accepted, later study is carried out on that premise, so your knowledge always needs to be updated.

“Even So…”

Some people will say, “But I have no knowledge or judgment about ancestry research.” However, your lack of knowledge or judgment has nothing at all to do with whether the content of a history book is right or wrong. Lacking knowledge or judgment is no reason to take the content as true at face value. Until you have enough knowledge and judgment, stick to gathering information, noting that “there was a history book that interpreted it this way.” Never chatter on to people who are easily taken in, saying “this is what a history book said,” or hand out booklets.

In fact, law has parts in common with research on keizu and keifu. It is the fact-finding part of a lawsuit. Evidence (including testimony) is submitted, and the judge determines from it whether the parties’ claims are true or false, but in most cases the evidence is not complete enough to reveal the whole picture. The judge examines fragmentary evidence and infers what facts there were. At this point the judge has no prior knowledge of the case. Inferring what actually happened has, for the most part, nothing to do with legal knowledge. One somehow reads it from the evidence and somehow finds the facts. It is clear that the fact that you have no knowledge does not allow you to swallow both parties’ claims whole.

In a lawsuit, the events are relatively recent and there are living witnesses, including the parties, whereas research on keizu and keifu deals with events of long ago, so there are no living witnesses, which is a big difference. However, the work of examining what facts can be inferred from fragmentary evidence is considered to be common to other academic and practical fields that deal with past facts.

Basic Ways to Use Local Histories

When you say you are researching your ancestors, local people tend to associate it with the family temple (bodaiji) and the local history, but you can rarely find answers in a local history. Unless the family is an extremely influential one, or the local history is an exceptionally thorough one, they are not listed.

What you should check first in a local history is the year of publication, the author, and the person who provided the materials. The provider of the materials is often the owner of old documents, so this is especially important.

Also take note of the information in the catalog of the locations of old documents (sometimes included in the materials volume, but often published as a separate volume). A location catalog gives the address and name of the owner of the old documents at the time the catalog was made. After publication, owners may have moved away, deposited the documents in an archive, or passed them on to a successor, so if a residential map suggests that the owner has moved, you need to follow up using the address and name as clues, and you should keep in mind the possibility that the documents were deposited with an archive or other institution (not necessarily in the same prefecture).

Next are the materials volumes, and the chapters on keizu, population and family registers, and the chapters on temples and shrines in the general history volumes. If a transcription of a population register or a keizu is included there, you are lucky. The chapters on temples and shrines also include information on temples and shrines that have existed since ancient times as well as abolished temples, so they are a useful reference if you do not know your family temple. If there are village maps, check them too, but most are reduced in size and the characters are hard to read, so find out where the originals are held.

After that, go through the general history volumes, starting from the period in which the ancestor you are looking for lived.