Growing Need for Ancestor Research; Roots Tourism Booming in Europe and the U.S. 　Aiming to revitalize local communities, the industry's first Multilingual Ancestor Research" for Japanese Americans to revitalize local communities

Kakehashi Corporation (Head Office: Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture; Representative: Kazunobu Yamaguchi), an ancestry research company, has begun offering the industry's first "Multilingual Ancestry Research" service for foreigners of Japanese descent on March 2, 2024, in response to the worldwide boom in roots tourism to visit places associated with ancestors.

Representative Kazunobu Yamaguchi(1)

Roots tourism is expected to expand in Japan.

Family tree and ancestry research is attracting attention, and the number of specialized companies that conduct research on behalf of the individual is increasing. One of the reasons for this is the growing need to reconfirm family ties, as nuclear families have fewer opportunities to get to know their relatives than in the past.

Meanwhile, overseas, roots tourism, a form of travel in which people search for their roots, is growing rapidly. Roots tourism is a form of tourism in which people visit the places where their ancestors lived and trace their roots based on information such as family trees. In Japan, local governments are beginning to revitalize local communities through roots tourism. Okinawa's "Uchinanchu Convention of the World" is a pioneering roots tourism event for foreigners of Japanese descent, and has been held seven times so far. The event invites overseas immigrants and other people of Okinawan descent with roots in Okinawa, and last year, 3,693 people of Japanese descent from 24 countries participated. The number of real visitors was 214,900. Online 214,390 people, and the economic impact is said to be over 1 billion yen.

Family tree delivery

Multilingual Ancestral Research for Nikkei Abroad, an Industry First

In response to the growing trend of roots tourism, we have launched the industry's first "Multi-lingual Ancestral Research" for Nikkei (foreigners of Japanese descent). When researching ancestors, the first step is to request a copy of the family register, which is difficult even for Japanese people to decipher unless they are accustomed to doing so. In addition, there are many other obstacles to researching the ancestors of Japanese-Americans, such as language barriers and lack of familiarity with the local area. Multilingual Ancestor Research" was created to address these barriers by researching on behalf of the person himself/herself.

The website is available in Japanese, English, and Portuguese. For actual customer service, family trees, family history timelines, and information on ancestors' places of residence, we are the No. 1 service provider in the industry, with the ability to provide information in 73 languages. Depending on the client's intention, the research period is generally one to four months. Usually, we can trace back 3 to 7 generations, and sometimes up to the end of the Edo period (about 200 years ago).

The reason for the request varies. Many of our clients are elderly people who want to trace their own roots as they get older, or who feel they need to know their roots for the sake of their families. The largest number of requests we have received from foreigners to date have been from Japanese-Brazilians. It is not uncommon to find previously unknown relatives in the vicinity of their ancestral residence.

In the case of Japanese-Brazilian clients, we have had many requests from Japanese-Brazilian clients who have had to make a trip to Japan to learn about their ancestors.

In the case of a Japanese-Brazilian client, he asked us to research his great-grandfather who came to Brazil from Japan. In addition to the harsh life he had to lead, he was not allowed to use Japanese during the war, and after the war there were clashes between Japanese people, so he had not been told much about those days.

Customer's comment: "I wonder how much it must have been like to cross the sea in my great-grandfather's time. I feel a sense of gratitude that I have never felt before for the fact that I am here today thanks to my ancestors who overcame such difficulties."

This is why we started the "Multi-Lingual Ancestry Research" because we felt again that it is important for not only Japanese but also Japanese-Americans to know the stories of their ancestors that they did not know.

The representative commented, "My ancestors also had Brazilian immigrants. As I continued my research, I was distressed to learn about the sad history of Brazilian immigrants, but at the same time I strongly felt that I had to live my life without regrets. I hope that our overseas Nikkei customers will discover something new about themselves by learning about their ancestors' footprints and facing up to their ancestors' lives."

In the future, we hope to help revitalize local communities by establishing ancestor tourism in Japan.

The World Kakehashi Website: https://senzosearch.com

Company Profile】 Company name: Sekai-no-Kakehashi, Inc.

Company name: Sekai no Kakehashi Co.

Representative: Kazunobu Yamaguchi

Head Office: 13-19 Aza Boshumon, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 981-0945

Business : Ancestry research and genealogy services, multilingual translation services, etc.

URL : https://senzosearch.com

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