For more than 250 years, travelers were prohibited from entering or leaving Japan. During the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868, Japanese were finally permitted to leave the country as… Read More »Pilgrimage: A Journey with a Purpose
My initial introduction into the world of genealogy began in a way familiar to many young parents; the kids each had to complete a family tree for school and I… Read More »A Family Affair
Angel Island is a beautiful place for a picnic, a picture perfect location for tourists and locals alike. But the real beauty lies in its history. I am… Read More »Isla de los Angeles
Those of us connected to the American Nikkei community know the usual vernacular: Issei, Nissei, Sansei, Yonsei and so on. Of course, there are a variety of other… Read More »Half-a-Sansei
Spending a Saturday morning pulling weeds and raking leaves doesn’t sound like much fun. That is, unless you happen to be a cemetery-loving genealogist with a passion for all things… Read More »A Sense of Community
DNA is a popular tool among genealogists. Y-DNA gives us great insight into specific ancestors in a direct male line. I was able to prove a connection to a family… Read More »What Does mtDNA Really Look Like?
A true but bittersweet tale. A Lutheran German American who was imprisoned in the U.S. as a very young boy has lunch at a Jewish deli in Manhattan with a… Read More »German Americans in U.S. Internment Camps?
U.S. copyright law is pretty straightforward. Original work is copyright protected until it is in the public domain. Blogs are publications and are (usually) original works of authorship. But publishing… Read More »Public Publication versus Public Domain
The Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Center is located in Burnaby, Canada, just outside Vancouver. British Columbia has a long history of Japanese immigrants dating back to 1877 when Manzo… Read More »Adventures in Vancouver: Nikkei Place
For a genealogist, no trip to Seattle would be complete without a visit to the Pacific Alaska Region branch of the National Archives. I spent a full morning scrolling through… Read More »Nihonmachi and the National Archives
