Look on the links page for Surname Info. Its a website with information about Korean family names, including lists of clans (GongPa) and HanJa characters used in the first names of each generation (HangRyeolPyo). If you don’t know which clan record to look for, you can sometimes narrow it down by finding one of the HanJa characters of your ancestor’s name in the HangRyeolPyo on this site. It can give you a lot of clues about where to look for your ancestors if you only know their name.
Looking at a Korean Geneology book. Many names have a second name, and a Korean referred to this second name as ‘Ho”. Example: Name is listed as Lim Moon Do (Che Kyoung). A second example is Lim Kan Taek (Nak Jung). Any help on the meaning or purpose of the second name in parentheses?
I have also seen two names in some genealogies during some time periods. I am also searching for more information about that practice. So far I have learned that kings were given a name at birth and a new name at the temple and as a reigning king they were known by the new name. I’m curious if that is similar to the other records of people with two names listed or if it is a reference to a parent or something.
Hi my name is Suzanne and I am trying to find out more info on my mother’s, mother side of the family. My Great Grand Daddy is Sang Ik Sim who is from the Joseon Dynasty. There is info for that side of the family but I am having a more difficult time finding anything on my Great Grand Father from my Mother’s, Mother’s side. His name was Sok Chon Choe and was somehow related or connected to Syngman Rhee. Any suggestions on who I could contact to help me do the research. I want someone honest. THANK YOU! Appreciate your time to put together this site! Mobile Number: 704-577-7616
I have met an iron door of no access to start genealogy on my maternal side. My mom, I believed spelled Suk Cha Yu married my dad and moved from Seoul to the states by because their marriage failed and for other reasons she cut herself off from me when I was a child. Can anyone tell me anything or point me in the direction of finding more out about her maiden sir name, YU?
Hi, my name is Sandra and I am trying to find my family in Seoul. We left Korea in 1983 when I was 7 years old. My mother’s name was Noh Hui Chi. She had an older brother, Noh Jae Jin who had 5 sons and 1 daughter. My mother had an older sister, but I don’t recall her name since I called her Emo. She had 2 daughters and a son. The youngest was my mother’s brother, Noh Jae Sun. He had 2 sons and 1 daughter. My grandmother was a Buddhist monk that lived in Incheon. I have a book of my ancestors, but it is all in Korean and I can’t read it. What can I do to find my family?
What do I do with it. It is in Korean. It also has a picture of one of the Korean Presidents, Noh Tae Woo. Would that mean I am related to him? I am at a loss. Thanks!
I sent you an email to coordinate sending a picture of the Korean book to help us you get started. Did you get it, or should I send it to a different address?
Hello, I’m searching for my mother’s 2 sisters who were given up for adoption when she was 5 years old in Korea. When my mom was 5, her mother, Chong Ok Choe, passed away and for reason’s unknown to her, her father, Pyong Ok Kim, gave her older and younger sister away. Old paperwork she has lists her sisters names and DOB’s. She has no idea if her sisters ended up together or were separated. If they were separated, the youngest may not remember anything, because she was approx. 1 years old when their mother passed. Any useful information to help in finding them would be appreciated.
Yong Ae Kim – DOB: 11/7/1958
Hwa Cha Kim – DOB: 8/15/1964
Trying to find out more on Hwangbo (my grandfather’s last name). Only saw the stuff on wikipedia about a PM and some kind of queen but I don’t know if that’s at all related. Want to know if all Hwangbos are related or is it like a “Smith” thing?
my greetings admins, i grew up without a father and through all these years i have been very curious as to what’s going on in his life? is he healthy and safe? because my mother lost connection with him since i was just months old and they met in my country, the Philippines in waterfront cebu. his name is Jo Heung Park and i was hoping that it’s not too difficult to find him despite the similarities of thousands of names out there and suprisingly i found his facebook. great news right? so we have a couple of pictures of my dad and my mother but they were never married and the profile picture was exactly the same! so i added him but much to my dismay he never accepted the request and even took off his profile picture. and it was the only picture in his page. i also tried talked to him on messenger and sended pics yet i never received my reply. the description says that he lives in incheong taiwan now and im certain that he is on his golden age since when my mom got pregnant with me he was already 40 plus? i assume and i really hope that your team can locate me to him although im still very young i wish to see him and have a conversation. if any of you readers, admins may help or have information through anything that is related to his life i would really appreciate that and be thankful. oh and my contact number is (Philippines) 09158514978 or 09562710658 God bless and i hope i receive help and peace 🙂 please do not hesitate to contact me.
I’m in Search of my Grandmother that lives in Seoul Korea. Her name is Song Cha Chang born on March 15th 1949. I have more info on her just need to find the right place to start and I don’t know where . Someone please help thank you.
I have little information to go on but need help. We are trying to find out if we have any living family members in Korea. My Halmoni Aeja Kim married my grandfather Bruce Jackson in Seoul, Korea in 1959-1960. My uncle Eddie Jackson was born in Korea in 1961. They moved to Tacoma Washington in 1963. My grandmother took the American name Connie.
She never told us anything about her life in Korea. She used to travel to Korea in the 70s and stopped before I was born in 1982. We have some photos of the people she visited while there.
Please help, not knowing if we have any family out there is killing us.
Hello, I’m hoping someone can help me. My mother was born in South Korea in 1931. Shortly after her birth she was smuggle by her mother into Japan where she was raised until the age of 17. This is when she met my father who was serving in the military after WW2 and they married shortly after. My father returned to the US with my mother and this is where I was born along with the rest of my family.
During our entire lives we believed our mother to be Japanese. It’s all she spoke, the food she made and she had relatives living in Hiroshima.
When my mother passed away a few years ago I learned for the first time in my life she was actually Korean. I was stunned. No one in our family had ever met anyone from my mother’s side during our lifetime, in fact, we didn’t even know any names of our relatives on my mom’s side. I’m not certain why she keep all of this secret from us, but she did tell me before her passing that I needed to go to Korea and track down her side of the family, that there was some “nobility” associated with them, whatever that meant.
What I do know is that as I sit here writing this I feel a void in me not knowing anything about my mother’s side of our family. Our family has nothing in terms of paperwork on my mom. It’s as if she did not exist. The only thing I know is her maiden name was Sang Nam Rhee, which I believe to be Korean.
Is there’s anyone out there who can tell me where to begin to look for the origin of this name in Korea, I would deeply appreciate it? I’m hoping to somehow trace where my mother came from and possibly located some living relatives that I could possibly meet one day.
Well, many of the clans in South Korea have formal family organizations with websites, family historical sites and burial sites, family gatherings, and genealogical and family history records / family registries (JokBo). So that is good news if we can identify the right clan. Typically each Korean surname has several (potentially unrelated) clans — each originating from a different place and person. So the first step would be to identify your mother’s maiden surname. One of the “Lee” clans spells their name “Rhee” (also sometimes spelled Lee, Ri, or Yi when written in the English alphabet) (이 in HanGul; 李 in HanJa or Chinese) and is a prominent surname that is well known for the first president of South Korea who popularized the spelling “Rhee”. There are MANY MANY MANY Lee clans… the one known for the spelling Rhee and the first South Korean president is 전주이씨 (JeonJu Rhee clan) — the Rhee clan that originated at JeonJu (전주). There is a chance that she may have belonged to a different Lee clan, but with that spelling I’d probably start there. Note that a Lee clan ruled Korea during the JoSeon/ChoSun (choose your preferred spelling) dynasty from 1392 A.D. to 1910 A.D., so there will be a LOT of nobility and royalty in that lineage. Here is a list of Korean surnames and clans: http://koreangenealogy.org/book/online-addendum/surnames-clans/ . 전주이씨(全州李氏) JeonJu Lee/I/Rhee Sshi (clan) is one of the largest of the Lee / Rhee (이, 李) clans and had 808,511 households with 2,609,890 people in the year 2000 A.D. south korean census. JeonJu Rhee family website: http://rfo.co.kr/. With more details it may be possible to verify which clan she (and you) belong to, but just based on what you said and relying heavily on the choice to spell it “Rhee,” I’d say this clan is most likely the one you’re related to…
Do you know of any good resources for Korean genealogy? Please share them…
Look on the links page for Surname Info. Its a website with information about Korean family names, including lists of clans (GongPa) and HanJa characters used in the first names of each generation (HangRyeolPyo). If you don’t know which clan record to look for, you can sometimes narrow it down by finding one of the HanJa characters of your ancestor’s name in the HangRyeolPyo on this site. It can give you a lot of clues about where to look for your ancestors if you only know their name.
See and excellent question and a tutorial on HangRyolPyo’s here: http://koreangenealogy.org/contact/#comment-25
I’ve just discovered Professor Mark Peterson’s outstanding website and tutorials. Check it out! http://koreanfamilyhistory.org
Here is an interesting tutorial on Korean names.
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/10/still-more-about-korean-names.html
Do you have any questions or need help? Please ask…
Do you know of good resources to learn Korean?
The Handbook of Korean Vocabulary is excellent. It organizes words by common roots, which is the best way to expand your Korean vocabulary.
Just found a really old jokbo at Centre for Korean Studies Materials http://www.kostma.net/?lang=en. I haven’t gone through the site but it looks really interesting. There’s a link to “Archive of Old Manuscripts.” The link to the jokbo came up in a google search and is at http://www.kostma.net/FamilyTree/PersonView.aspx?personid=pd025454&person_uci=.
Looking at a Korean Geneology book. Many names have a second name, and a Korean referred to this second name as ‘Ho”. Example: Name is listed as Lim Moon Do (Che Kyoung). A second example is Lim Kan Taek (Nak Jung). Any help on the meaning or purpose of the second name in parentheses?
I have also seen two names in some genealogies during some time periods. I am also searching for more information about that practice. So far I have learned that kings were given a name at birth and a new name at the temple and as a reigning king they were known by the new name. I’m curious if that is similar to the other records of people with two names listed or if it is a reference to a parent or something.
Hello! Do you have any idea where do UMs from? Or what’s their ancestral history? Great site btw.
This site shows about how many different Um clans there are and what city each clan started in. http://www.surname.info/eum/eum.html . It looks like most are part of this clan: http://www.surname.info/eum/juk_san.html . The hometown is shown here: http://www.surname.info/local/juk_san.html : KyungGi Do, YongIn Gun, AnSan Gun, JukSan (Juk Mountain). Just about over 2000 people were from that clan in the year 2000… Here are the family JokBo records for the Um clan from Juk Mountan (JukSan): https://familysearch.org/search/image/index#uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Frecapi%2Fsord%2Fwaypoint%2FSHYF-SPR%3A961172301%2C20201802%2C20204702%2C20204703%2C20204704%3Fcc%3D1398522 . Here is a map to the village of JukSanMyeon ( 죽산면 ): https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juksan-myeon,+Anseong-si,+Gyeonggi-do,+South+Korea/@37.053458,127.423625,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x3564b6d6507b5b83:0xfef2746fc048e8b8
Here are some photos of beautiful JukSanMyeon, including sites built and maintained by your ancestors. It would be fun to visit your ancestral sites: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juksan-myeon,+Anseong-si,+Gyeonggi-do,+South+Korea/@37.0262184,127.3978471,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m5!1e2!3m3!1s-BEs3V1fc5lA%2FUWF-7bmbnqI%2FAAAAAAAABNo%2FHsH5q1PuyoI!2e4!3e15!4m2!3m1!1s0x3564b6d6507b5b83:0xfef2746fc048e8b8!6m1!1e1
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-31642-1343-12?cc=1398522&wc=SHYF-S5X:961172301,20201802,20204702,20204703,20204704,961172302 The JokBo has maps of sacred family sites…
A search for “죽산음씨” reveals a family organization: http://cafe.daum.net/oneeum . What a great way to meet the family and find relatives!!!!
Some info about the Um family history: http://www.rootsinfo.co.kr/info/roots/view_roots.php?H=%EB%E4&B=%C1%D7%BB%EA&HB=%F1%D3%DF%A3&P= http://www.jokbo.re.kr/book/index.html?sn=&fn=1123&fnkey=11231023
Have fun. 🙂
Hi my name is Suzanne and I am trying to find out more info on my mother’s, mother side of the family. My Great Grand Daddy is Sang Ik Sim who is from the Joseon Dynasty. There is info for that side of the family but I am having a more difficult time finding anything on my Great Grand Father from my Mother’s, Mother’s side. His name was Sok Chon Choe and was somehow related or connected to Syngman Rhee. Any suggestions on who I could contact to help me do the research. I want someone honest. THANK YOU! Appreciate your time to put together this site! Mobile Number: 704-577-7616
I have met an iron door of no access to start genealogy on my maternal side. My mom, I believed spelled Suk Cha Yu married my dad and moved from Seoul to the states by because their marriage failed and for other reasons she cut herself off from me when I was a child. Can anyone tell me anything or point me in the direction of finding more out about her maiden sir name, YU?
Hello, I am your mothers sister, my name is Suk Hee Yu. I may have some information for you if you can provide an email address.
Hi, my name is Sandra and I am trying to find my family in Seoul. We left Korea in 1983 when I was 7 years old. My mother’s name was Noh Hui Chi. She had an older brother, Noh Jae Jin who had 5 sons and 1 daughter. My mother had an older sister, but I don’t recall her name since I called her Emo. She had 2 daughters and a son. The youngest was my mother’s brother, Noh Jae Sun. He had 2 sons and 1 daughter. My grandmother was a Buddhist monk that lived in Incheon. I have a book of my ancestors, but it is all in Korean and I can’t read it. What can I do to find my family?
Wow. The family JokBo is such a precious document — how luck you are to have it. That will help immensely.
What do I do with it. It is in Korean. It also has a picture of one of the Korean Presidents, Noh Tae Woo. Would that mean I am related to him? I am at a loss. Thanks!
I sent you an email to coordinate sending a picture of the Korean book to help us you get started. Did you get it, or should I send it to a different address?
I sent a picture of the book. Thank you!!!
Hello, I’m searching for my mother’s 2 sisters who were given up for adoption when she was 5 years old in Korea. When my mom was 5, her mother, Chong Ok Choe, passed away and for reason’s unknown to her, her father, Pyong Ok Kim, gave her older and younger sister away. Old paperwork she has lists her sisters names and DOB’s. She has no idea if her sisters ended up together or were separated. If they were separated, the youngest may not remember anything, because she was approx. 1 years old when their mother passed. Any useful information to help in finding them would be appreciated.
Yong Ae Kim – DOB: 11/7/1958
Hwa Cha Kim – DOB: 8/15/1964
Trying to find out more on Hwangbo (my grandfather’s last name). Only saw the stuff on wikipedia about a PM and some kind of queen but I don’t know if that’s at all related. Want to know if all Hwangbos are related or is it like a “Smith” thing?
my greetings admins, i grew up without a father and through all these years i have been very curious as to what’s going on in his life? is he healthy and safe? because my mother lost connection with him since i was just months old and they met in my country, the Philippines in waterfront cebu. his name is Jo Heung Park and i was hoping that it’s not too difficult to find him despite the similarities of thousands of names out there and suprisingly i found his facebook. great news right? so we have a couple of pictures of my dad and my mother but they were never married and the profile picture was exactly the same! so i added him but much to my dismay he never accepted the request and even took off his profile picture. and it was the only picture in his page. i also tried talked to him on messenger and sended pics yet i never received my reply. the description says that he lives in incheong taiwan now and im certain that he is on his golden age since when my mom got pregnant with me he was already 40 plus? i assume and i really hope that your team can locate me to him although im still very young i wish to see him and have a conversation. if any of you readers, admins may help or have information through anything that is related to his life i would really appreciate that and be thankful. oh and my contact number is (Philippines) 09158514978 or 09562710658 God bless and i hope i receive help and peace 🙂 please do not hesitate to contact me.
I’m in Search of my Grandmother that lives in Seoul Korea. Her name is Song Cha Chang born on March 15th 1949. I have more info on her just need to find the right place to start and I don’t know where . Someone please help thank you.
I have little information to go on but need help. We are trying to find out if we have any living family members in Korea. My Halmoni Aeja Kim married my grandfather Bruce Jackson in Seoul, Korea in 1959-1960. My uncle Eddie Jackson was born in Korea in 1961. They moved to Tacoma Washington in 1963. My grandmother took the American name Connie.
She never told us anything about her life in Korea. She used to travel to Korea in the 70s and stopped before I was born in 1982. We have some photos of the people she visited while there.
Please help, not knowing if we have any family out there is killing us.
Hello, I’m hoping someone can help me. My mother was born in South Korea in 1931. Shortly after her birth she was smuggle by her mother into Japan where she was raised until the age of 17. This is when she met my father who was serving in the military after WW2 and they married shortly after. My father returned to the US with my mother and this is where I was born along with the rest of my family.
During our entire lives we believed our mother to be Japanese. It’s all she spoke, the food she made and she had relatives living in Hiroshima.
When my mother passed away a few years ago I learned for the first time in my life she was actually Korean. I was stunned. No one in our family had ever met anyone from my mother’s side during our lifetime, in fact, we didn’t even know any names of our relatives on my mom’s side. I’m not certain why she keep all of this secret from us, but she did tell me before her passing that I needed to go to Korea and track down her side of the family, that there was some “nobility” associated with them, whatever that meant.
What I do know is that as I sit here writing this I feel a void in me not knowing anything about my mother’s side of our family. Our family has nothing in terms of paperwork on my mom. It’s as if she did not exist. The only thing I know is her maiden name was Sang Nam Rhee, which I believe to be Korean.
Is there’s anyone out there who can tell me where to begin to look for the origin of this name in Korea, I would deeply appreciate it? I’m hoping to somehow trace where my mother came from and possibly located some living relatives that I could possibly meet one day.
Well, many of the clans in South Korea have formal family organizations with websites, family historical sites and burial sites, family gatherings, and genealogical and family history records / family registries (JokBo). So that is good news if we can identify the right clan. Typically each Korean surname has several (potentially unrelated) clans — each originating from a different place and person. So the first step would be to identify your mother’s maiden surname. One of the “Lee” clans spells their name “Rhee” (also sometimes spelled Lee, Ri, or Yi when written in the English alphabet) (이 in HanGul; 李 in HanJa or Chinese) and is a prominent surname that is well known for the first president of South Korea who popularized the spelling “Rhee”. There are MANY MANY MANY Lee clans… the one known for the spelling Rhee and the first South Korean president is 전주이씨 (JeonJu Rhee clan) — the Rhee clan that originated at JeonJu (전주). There is a chance that she may have belonged to a different Lee clan, but with that spelling I’d probably start there. Note that a Lee clan ruled Korea during the JoSeon/ChoSun (choose your preferred spelling) dynasty from 1392 A.D. to 1910 A.D., so there will be a LOT of nobility and royalty in that lineage. Here is a list of Korean surnames and clans: http://koreangenealogy.org/book/online-addendum/surnames-clans/ . 전주이씨(全州李氏) JeonJu Lee/I/Rhee Sshi (clan) is one of the largest of the Lee / Rhee (이, 李) clans and had 808,511 households with 2,609,890 people in the year 2000 A.D. south korean census. JeonJu Rhee family website: http://rfo.co.kr/. With more details it may be possible to verify which clan she (and you) belong to, but just based on what you said and relying heavily on the choice to spell it “Rhee,” I’d say this clan is most likely the one you’re related to…