Mark Peterson is associate professor of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
The Palgojodo Association
Call me quixotic, but I have founded, formally, the genealogical association of the future for Korea. It is actually the genealogical association of old Korea, that I am trying to revive for a framework of family history research in the future.
Korea has perhaps the greatest concentration of genealogical data of any country on earth — the jokbo, but its structure is tied to a patrilineal family orientation that limits its usefulness for the 21st century. What I mean is the jokbo is organized on male lines, so much so that once you start into the charts, it doesn’t even include the surname of the people listed. It tells you on the cover and at the outset what the surname is, but it’s never mentioned again. Well, it’s on the border of each page, usually, but not in the text itself. It’s not necessary. Everyone knows this is the Kim family from Gimhae, this is the Lee family from Jeonju, etc.
Women are not excluded from the document — contrary to what some people will tell you. Women are listed as wives who marry into the male line, and daughters who marry out, into other male lines. The average jokbo contains a wealth of information about both the main line of males and the side lines of females.
However, this format of genealogy has not always been the record of choice in Korea. Early jokbo included female lines as well as male lines. The earliest printed jokbo was published in 1476, however, there were family lines recorded in non-published formats that date well back before 1476, back to the Silla Dynasty.
Additionally, there were two differing styles of jokbo before Korea settled on the male-dominant form somewhere in the late 17th century. There was the top-down triangle, that included all descendants, male and female, and there was also a bottom-up triangle that would reckon kinship from the living person and extend upward to include his male and female ancestors. It is this bottom-up triangle that resembles the family history format used in the West today.
When I speak to Korean groups, and I get to this part of the presentation, I like to ask them how many great, great grandfathers they have, “gojo haraboji.” Most people in most audiences say they have one — one gojo ancestor. At which point, I like to point out that one has two grandfathers, right?, and two grandmothers. Those four individuals each have a father and a mother, making four great, grandfathers, and four great grandmothers. And double it again for the next generation and one has eight great, great grandfathers and eight great, great grandmothers. "Pal gojo," and "pal gojomo."
It turns out that before Korea was swept up in the patrilineal organization they did reckon family history in terms of mother’s lines as well as father’s lines. And they made charts of their palgojo — the eight great, great grandfathers. The wives were listed on the charts as well, making it 16 ancestors at the fifth generation upward.
What has that to do with today? Korea, in many ways, is abandoning the patrilineal system. Daughters now have inheritances — they had them from earliest history but lost them in the late 17th century. Korea is re-examining its ancestor ceremonies — daughters once hosted them as well as sons, until the late 17th century when daughters were excluded from the ceremonies — that, too, had become patrilineal. Marriages today are not restricted to “shijip-gada”— the bride going to live with the groom’s family, but before the late 17th century there was equality of marriage, where one might choose to have the groom go live at the bride’s house — “jangga-gada." In various ways, the patrilineal takeover of the family changed everything.
But before these “patrilineal” developments, Korea enjoyed a degree of egalitarianism — in many areas except politics, always the domain of men. And the common genealogical structure that they knew was the “palgojo-do” — the chart of the eight great, great grandfathers.
As Korea moves into a new family structure in the 21st century, I am suggesting that they abandon the male-dominant jokbo, and re-acquire the pre-patrilineal format, the “palgojodo” and help Korea find its way to where it once was, and to where Western families are today, I’ve founded the Palgojodo Association. To be a member, you must find all of your eight great, great grandparents. Short of finding them all, while one is researching the female lines, one can be an “associate member” — a “jun-hoewon.”
My goal in creating this association is to help 21st-century Koreans see beyond the strictures of the patrilineal jokbo. I’m not saying Korea must go that way, I’m predicting that that is the way they will go, because they did that once upon a time, and that’s what is done in the West today. It’s the wave of the future, and I’m just trying to help my Korean friends see and understand that option.
If you’d like to accept the challenge and join the Palgojodo Association, look for it by that name on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1026879745532130)
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.