This week the talented researcher, Evie Seitz, has been translating a couple of pages (pp. 268-69) from the Song family Jokbo held in OSU’s Rare Books & Manuscripts Library. The significance of these specific pages is that they list the names of immediate family members in Thomas Song’s generation (Generation #26), his father’s generation (Generation #25), and his grandfather’s (Generation #24). Evie’s work on this translation is so important that I’m posting it below for future access:
Song Family Jokbo Translation Explanation
by Evelyn Seitz
July 21, 2023
The sister document to this (“Final Jokbo Translation”) is an Excel spreadsheet holding a faithful translation of pages 268 and 269 of the Eunjin Song clan jokbo. In order to better understand the format of both the original and the translation, brief explanatory notes are provided below.
In the Eunjin Song clan jokbo, only the names of sons are recorded. Sons are noted with the character 子 (Hangeul: 자; RR: ja; “child”) followed by their name. Daughters are listed with the character 女 (Hangeul: 여; RR: yeo; “woman”) followed by their husband’s name. The exception to this rule is that starting with the 27th generation, daughters are noted 女 followed by their own names; married daughters are listed in the same manner, with the addition of their husband noted by 夫 (H: 부; RR: bu; “husband”) and the husbands name, written immediately to the left with a small space (smaller than between siblings in a row).
Jokbo are read in a “stair step” method, moving from top-to-bottom, right-to-left. Each row is a generation, with the oldest at the top and the most recent at the bottom. Starting at an upper row, names listed directly below and to the left of any given son are his children, until there is a gap, and one travels back up the page to another upper row to follow a new line down. Below is a photo of the original, untranslated pages, annotated to show the flow of reading:
I have opted to translate only the most relevant relations to Thomas and Albert Song on this page. As such, only the 23rd, 24th, and 25th generation lines on pages 268-269 have been translated. As of July 20th, 2023, several small sections have been left untranslated, as consultation with outside specialists may be necessary to accurately parse them. For now, they have been left in Chinese characters as red or blue colored text to mark them for future inquiry.
The translation spreadsheet is formatted such that it follows the same method of reading as the jokbo, simply reversed to accommodate English reading direction. In other words, it should be read top-to-bottom, left-to-right; an exact mirror of the original.
All dates have been left in their original format as opposed to converted to Gregorian calendar dates. However, all have been checked for accuracy according to the Gregorian dates we have available from other sources in the collection. Many jokbo have mistakes, and these two pages appear to have only one, that being a discrepancy in Song Yo-heon’s date of death. Thomas’ papers indicate he died in 1962; this jokbo records his death as in 1986. An investigation will be conducted to determine which is correct.
Below is the same image of pages 268-269, annotated with brackets that show what portion is in the translation spreadsheet, as well as the locations of family members and their relationship to Thomas and Albert Song:
A picture of the two pages without notes:
