Editing Koreans (section)

===Genealogy===
[[Korea Foundation]] Associate Professor of History, Eugene Y. Park said that many Koreans seem to have a [[Genealogy|genealogical]] memory blackout before the twentieth century.<ref name="ProfessorEugenePark">Eugene Y. Park. (n.d.). [[University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences|Penn Arts & Sciences]] East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Retrieved 24 January 2018, from [https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ealc/people/eugene-y-park link.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111194602/https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ealc/people/eugene-y-park |date=11 November 2017 }}</ref><!--This first citation is to cite Eugene Y. Park's credential as "Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History".--><!--The context of Park's statements indicate that the, "memory blackout, before the twentieth century" which Park talked about, refers to a genealogical memory blackout.--><ref>Eugene Y. Park, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=7m6s from the 7:06 mark of the YouTube video to the 7:38 mark of the YouTube video] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200905151326/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=7m6s |date=5 September 2020 }}, said, "''Secondly, on the one hand, so many Koreans seem to talk, to be able to tell, one, something about his or her [[Kim (Korean surname)#Gyeongju|Gyeongju Kim]] ancestors, of a [[Silla]] kingdom two-thousand years ago. And yet, such a person is unlikely to be able to tell you something about his or her great-great-grandparents, what they were doing hundred years ago, what their occupations were, where they were living, where their family graves are. In other words, a memory blackout, before the twentieth century.''"</ref> According to him the vast majority of Koreans do not know their actual genealogical history.<!--The context of Park's statements indicate that when Park said, "the vast majority of Koreans have lost memory of their actual history," Park was referring to having lost memory of their actual genealogical history.--> Through "inventing tradition" in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, families devised a kind of master narrative story that purports to explain a surname-ancestral seat combination's history to the extent where it is next to impossible to look beyond these master narrative stories.<ref>Eugene Y. Park, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=16m54s from the 16:54 mark of the YouTube video to the 18:54 mark of the YouTube video] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705053044/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=16m54s |date=5 July 2020 }}, said, "''So, from this point on, then, I would like to survey, how the Koreans descended. Koreans, depending on their ancestors' status category, have dealt with genealogy and ancestry consciousness, in the last, differently, in the last two centuries. And, of course, most Koreans are not descendants of aristocrats, but, the, but what happened in the last hundred fifty, hundred to hundred fifty years, is that those Koreans, the vast majority of Koreans have lost memory of their actual history, in the sense where now, any outside observer who might ask a Korean person about ancestry, would be left with the impression that every Korean is now of aristocratic descent. So let me begin with the aristocracy. In the early modern era, the kind of a master narrative, stories that purport to explain a particular surname-ancestral seat combination's history, crystallize, they became set in stone, through inventing tradition. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, many, all families devise such a stories, to the extent where, now today in Korea, anybody who is interested in tracing his or her ancestry, has to deal with such master narratives, but at the same time it is next to impossible to look beyond master narratives. In other words, in Korea, today, there's little sense of doing the kind of doing the genealogical research that you and I would do in the United States, by looking at [[United States Census|Census]] documents, and other types of documentation, that have been passed down through generations, or, have been maintained by the government.''"</ref> He gave an example of what "inventing tradition" was like from his own family's genealogy where a document from 1873 recorded three children in a particular family and a later 1920 document recorded an extra son in that same family.<ref>Eugene Y. Park, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=28m32s from the 28:32 mark of the YouTube video to the 29:21 mark of the YouTube video] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200905151321/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=28m32s |date=5 September 2020 }}, said, "''This is an example. Here we see records that gives us a better sense of what inventing tradition was like. Here, a page from an eighteen seventy-three Miryang Pak family genealogy. Here's a man, indicated inside the circle named, Ju ''([[wikt:冑#Korean|冑]])''. He had three sons: Eun-gyeong, Hyeon-gyeong, Won-gyeong ''([[wikt:子#Korean|子]] [[wikt:恩#Korean|恩]] [[wikt:慶#Korean|慶]], [[wikt:子#Korean|子]] [[wikt:賢#Korean|賢]] [[wikt:慶#Korean|慶]], [[wikt:子#Korean|子]] [[wikt:元#Korean|元]] [[wikt:慶#Korean|慶]])''. But the edition that was published a bit later in the nineteen twenty, so we see the same man, Ju, and, under him, we see sons: Eun-gyeong, Hyeon-gyeong, Won-gyeong and, the extra, the fourth son, out of nowhere, Tōkhwa ''([[wikt:子#Korean|子]] [[wikt:徳#Korean|徳]] [[wikt:華#Korean|華]])''. Actually, this is my family. So, this was commonly done in the modern era, the children, son out of nowhere or claims that we were left out centuries ago, and please include us.''"</ref> Park said that these master narratives connect the same surname and ancestral seat to a single, common ancestor. This trend became universal in the nineteenth century, but genealogies which were published in the seventeenth century actually admit that they did not know how the different lines of the same surname or ancestral seat are related at all.<ref>Eugene Y. Park, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=18m55s from the 18:55 mark of the YouTube video to the 19:30 mark of the YouTube video] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901121608/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=18m55s |date=1 September 2020 }}, said, "''And, these master narratives, genealogically connect all descent lines of a same surname and ancestral seat, to a single, common, ancestor. And, this was the pattern that was, that became universal by the nineteenth century. Whereas, genealogies published in the seventeenth century, actually, frankly admit that we do not know how these different lines of the same surname or ancestral seat are related or connected at all. So, all these changes took place only in the last two hundred years or so.''"</ref> Only a small percentage of Koreans had surnames and ancestral seats to begin with, and that the rest of the Korean population had adopted these surname and ancestral seat identities within the last two to three hundred years.<ref>Eugene Y. Park, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=46m17s from the 46:17 mark of the YouTube video to the 47:02 mark of the YouTube video] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200905151324/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiv2ji6EiY&t=46m17s |date=5 September 2020 }}, said, "''At any rate, so, once, so, based on one's surname Kim, let's say, and the ancestral seat, [[Kim (Korean surname)#Gimhae (Kimhae)|Kimhae]], which is the most common ancestral seat among Kim surname Koreans, one can then look up, consult reference books, encyclopedias, go online to, find all these stories about different branches, famous individuals who are Kimhae Kim. But the problem is, of course, before the early modern era, only a small percentage of Koreans had surnames and the ancestral seat to begin with. In other words, the rest of the population had adopted these identities in the last two-three hundred years, so where does one go from there? And, this was definitely my challenge when I was a child.''"</ref>