About Me

Hello! I’m Linda.

Linda Harms Okazaki is a fourth-generation Californian who is passionate about teaching people of all ages to research, document, and share their family histories. Her areas of interest include the western U.S., upstate New York, England, Australia, Japanese Americans, and the use of DNA in genealogy. Linda has been researching her husband’s ancestry since 2012, documenting his family in the internment camps and in Japan. A charter member of the Nikkei Genealogical Society, and a consultant for Ancestry’s Progenealogists and Densho, she is also a featured columnist for the Nichi Bei News. Her column, “Finding Your Nikkei Roots,” is published bimonthly. Her guide to “Finding Your Japanese Roots” was updated in 2023. Ms. Okazaki is the author of numerous articles, including the National Genealogical Society’s “Paper Sons and Picture Brides,” which was co-authored by Grant Din, and “Japanese American Research,” published in the New York Researcher. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Genealogical Speaker’s Guild, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Linda is a past president of the California Genealogical Society, a former board member of the Nichi Bei Foundation, and the current president of the Northern California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Linda has an MA in Education, Mills College, 1983; and a BS in Human Development, UC Davis, 1979.