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KYU TOCHI DAICHO (Old Land Register): Part 3

The old land registry contains the following information.

- Land address and owner
- Land size
- Tax amount
- Land classification
- Date of registration
- Purpose of registration

1. Land address and owner

The old land registry shows the changes in ownership from the middle of the Meiji period to around 1955. If your ancestors are listed among the successive owners, you can determine how the land came to be in its current state.

Upon closer inspection, you may find cases where the land was inherited by direct descendants, inherited by a nephew, or purchased by a completely different family. If you check with your relatives, you may discover stories such as, "Some generations ago, our family had a heavy drinker who sold the land to pay for alcohol, leading to the family's decline. However, their children worked hard to buy it back." There are also cases where the eldest son was ill and unable to inherit the family estate, so the ownership was transferred to the family of the niece who married into the family, or the younger brother inherited it.

Therefore, before viewing the old land register, it is advisable to confirm the surnames of your ancestors' relatives. If you at least know their surnames, when you are actually looking at the old land registers of your ancestors, even if you come across an unfamiliar name, you can think, “This person might be a relative.” Here's an example. A man's great-grandfather had received the ownership of the land from his uncle. Although the uncle had a son, he chose to give his land to his nephew, the man's great-grandfather. The uncle's son seems to have moved to another area.

If you don't know the surnames of your relatives, you might simply assume that the land was purchased from a stranger. However, if you already know the surnames of your relatives, you can hypothesize that the land may have been transferred within the family.

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KYU TOCHI DAICHO (Old Land Register): Part 2

Tochi Daicho (land register) was originally a record used by municipal government offices and tax authorities for tax collection purposes, and was in use from around 1889 (Meiji 22) until the 1960s (Showa 30s). In 1960 (Showa 35), the Immovable Property Registration Act was revised, and the current real property registration system was established, rendering the land register obsolete. It is now referred to as the “Kyu Tochi Daicho (old land register).”

The old land register is still kept at each Legal Affairs Bureau, and copies can be obtained, upon in-person request, free of charge. However, in recent years, some Legal Affairs Bureaus have stopped issuing copies of old land registers for personal information protection purposes, unless there is a “reasonable reason”. “Genealogical research” does not seem to qualify as a “reasonable reason.” (Requesters might have to make copies on their own and at their expense by using a designated copy machine at the Legal Affairs Bureau.)

Additionally, if your ancestors did not own any land, their names would not appear in the old land registers.

The information recorded in the old land registers includes land’s lot numbers, land use categories, area, and owners. In the next post, we will provide a detailed explanation of this information.

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KYU TOCHI DAICHO (Old Land Register): Part 1

In Japanese American’s family history searches, it is often assumed that family registers (koseki) are the only source of information. However, there are several other ways to investigate ancestral records. One such method is the “Kyu Tochi Daichō (Old Land Register),” which is not widely known as a useful source of information.

Old land registers are old real estate registration records used from around 1889 to around 1937. They were tax registers used to register landowners. The earliest entries in these registers list landowners from the early 1890s, who were usually the heads of their households. In other words, these are your ancestors who were born around the end of the Edo period (1603 - 1868).

Family registers (koseki) are usually discarded after a certain number of years, making it increasingly difficult to obtain information from the registers. However, information that cannot be found in the registers may be available in old land registers. For example, you may discover the name of your direct ancestor's cousin who is not listed in the family register obtained by you.

In this series of articles, MYM Productions will walk you through the little-known old land registers.

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How To Read Posthumous Buddhist Names: Part 5

(This article was written based on the information from https://ka-ju.co.jp/column/kaimyo.)

Order of Igō (rank names)

The following shows the order of Igō (rank names):

Men:
1. Dai-Koji (大居士）： great pious layman
2. In-Koji (院居士）： venerable pious layman
3. In-Shinji (院信士）： venerable male lay devotee
4. Koji (居士）: pious layman
5. Shin-Ji (信士）: male lay devotee
6. Dō-Ji (童子）: boy

Women:
1. In-Daishi (院大姉）： venerable great sister
2. In-Shin-Nyo (院信女）： venerable female lay devotee
3. Shin-Nyo (信女）： female lay devotee
4. Dō-Nyo (童女）： girl

In the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism, the wife or widow of a priest is given the posthumous name “Zen-Ni (禅尼, zen nun)”.

The posthumous name given to Yasunari Kawabata is “Daikoji (大居士）,” the highest rank. This recognition of his contribution to society, as a Nobel Prize winner in literature, is reflected in his posthumous name.

Kawabata's Kaimyō: 文鏡院殿弧山康成大居士

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Kai-myo vs. Ho-myo

Buddhist posthumous names are great source of information for those who are doing genealogical researches of their Japanese ancestors. Here are simplified explanations of these unique Japanese customs.

“Ho-myo” is only for Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land Sect), while “kai-myo” is for all the other Buddhist sects.

Originally, a “kai-myo” was a name given only to those who had received the teachings of the Buddha and entered the Buddhist priesthood. The idea of giving a “kai-myo” is based on the unique Buddhist belief that “after death, human beings depart for the world of the Buddha”. The custom of giving Buddhist posthumous names seems to have arisen from the idea that even the most evil of people will be guided to the Buddha's side after death and become a Buddha. Over the time, as Buddhism spread throughout Japan, ranks were established for Buddhist posthumous names. During the feudal to pre-modern period, there are different ranks of Buddhist posthumous names, which are given in exchange for the payment of a large sum of money as 'offering' at the funeral. However, if the only thing that matters is paying money to get a high-ranking posthumous Buddhist name, then the value of the posthumous Buddhist name itself may lose its credibility. Therefore, when it comes to receiving a posthumous Buddhist name, social status and contribution to society (such as involvement in charitable work) during one's lifetime, and how much one has contributed to the temple as a parishioner, etc., seem to be reviewed as criteria for making a decision. One of the characteristics of Buddhist posthumous names is that they do not use kana (Japanese alphabets). The basic style of Buddhist posthumous names is vertical writing using only kanji (Chinese characters).

In Jodo Shinshu, the name given to a person at the time of their death is called a “Ho-myo”. One point that is particularly important to note is that people tend to think that Homyo is a name given to a deceased person. However, officially, it is a name given to a person when they make a vow to live as a “Buddhist disciple” while they are still alive. In the Jodo Shinshu sect, you can receive a posthumous Buddhist name only after you have vowed to devote yourself to living as a disciple of the Buddha while devoting yourself to the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) during your lifetime. Although the posthumous Buddhist name is often confused with the Buddhist name, it represents the name of a disciple of the Buddha in the Jodo Shinshu sect.

In the next post, we will explain how to read Japanese Buddhist names.

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