Thomas Gregory Song Family Exhibit

Guest post by Sieon Lim¹

Recently, one of our student workers, Sieon Lim, conducted research on Thomas Gregory Song’s mother, Seo Jeong-ah, and her family lineage and bongwan (clan). The following is a condensed summary of his findings regarding Seo Jeong-ah and the potential for her (and by extension, her family) to share a bongwan with the prominent Korean/Korean American reformer and activist Philip Jaisohn (born Seo Jae-pil, 1864–1951).

The Dalseong Seo clan holds a particularly significant place among the prominent Seo lineages in Korea; over time, a branch of the clan became more prominent in Korea’s capital and began maintaining its own separate genealogical records. Although members of this branch continued to recognize their shared kinship with the Dalseong lineage, the branch came to identify Daegu as its bongwan.² 

In 1884, two Daegu Seo clansmen, Seo Jae-pil and Seo Gwang-beom, played leading roles in an attempted coup d’état against the Joseon court, known today as the Gapsin Coup (also spelled Kapsin Coup). The coup failed, leading to the punishment and persecution of its organizers and their families. In order to distance themselves from those who had taken part in the revolt, the Daegu Seo clan altered its generation naming conventions (hangnyeolja).

According to traditional Korean naming conventions, names are generally composed of a surname and a given name, which is made up of a generational name and a unique name. Each clan has its own set of generational names, which are assigned based not on when a person was born, but rather on their place in the lineage (meaning two people from different time periods can end up in the same generation and thus have the same generational name). 

For the Daegu Seo clan, the 25th generation name was “Gwang” and the 26th was “Jae.” However, following the attempted coup, the clan altered its naming convention, introducing “Byeong” and “Jeong” in place of “Gwang” and “Jae,” respectively.³ This meant that going forward, all members of the 25th generation were named using the generation name “Byeong,” and all members of the 26th generation were named using the generation name “Jeong.” 

For Thomas Song’s mother, Seo Jeong-ah, her name was constructed using the generation name “Jeong.” Furthermore, her father, Seo Byeong-gi, used the generation name “Byeong,” which also corresponds with the name change found in the Daegu Seo naming convention. While this could be a coincidence, the pattern appears to align closely with the Daegu Seo clan, suggesting the likelihood that Seo Jeong-ah and her family were members of the smaller Daegu Seo clan, as opposed to the Dalseong Seo clan. 

Today, the Dalseong Seo clan vastly outnumbers the Daegu Seo clan. For members of the Daegu Seo clan, explaining membership in a lesser-known branch can require far more effort than simply identifying with the better-known lineage, particularly given the historical relationship between the two. Thus, some members of the smaller Daegu Seo clan may identify themselves as belonging to the larger Dalseong Seo clan. Over generations, this practice may also make it more difficult for descendants to recognize their connection to the smaller Daegu Seo clan, particularly in families that migrated away from Korea.

Amidst the fallout of the Gapsin Coup, Seo Jae-pil moved to the United States, where he adopted the name Philip Jaisohn and became the first Korean to gain naturalized American citizenship. He later earned his medical degree, becoming the first Korean to do so in the United States. Given this trajectory, we can find parallels between Jaisohn’s life and that of Seo Jeong-ah, who eventually became one of the first female Korean doctors to earn a medical license in Imperial Japan.

In regard to the Song Family Collection, these findings are not about claiming historical prestige, but rather about illustrating the complexity of Korean genealogical research and the care required when seeking to identify and interpret clan affiliations. They also underscore a broader theme that is present throughout the Song Family Papers: how lives, identities, and family records are shaped by imperialism, war, displacement, and historical rupture. 

Notes:

^{1. Student author Lim’s interest in this question was partly personal: his own family traces its lineage to the Daegu Seo clan, and he was intrigued by the possibility of a genealogical connection to Thomas Song’s family. His research was also informed by his family’s longstanding understanding that they belonged to the Dalseong Seo clan. This unexpected intersection between his own family history and the Korean family represented in the Song Family Collection inspired Lim to pursue summer work as a student researcher at The Ohio State University, adding a particularly personal dimension to this research.↩}

^{2. The historical relationship between the Dalseong Seo and Daegu Seo clans is complex. The Daegu Seo were associated with the Gyeongpa (京派, “capital branch”) and the Dalseong Seo with the Hyangpa (鄕派, “local/provincial branch”). Although the two groups recognized one another as kin, Daegu Seo genealogies increasingly distinguished between them. According to Yu Su-ji, the first Daegu Seo genealogy, compiled in 1702, recorded the Dalseong Seo separately in a supplementary genealogy; subsequent genealogies continued to negotiate the relationship between the two groups. See “Composition of the Daegu Seo Clan through Genealogy from the 18th to the 19th Century” [「18~19세기 族譜를 통해 본 大丘徐氏 동족집단의 구성」], Joseon Sidae Sahakbo [Journal of Chosŏn Dynasty History], no. 105 (2023): 451–480.↩}

^{3. For further context, please see Jeon Woo-yong, “항렬자를 지우니 이름의 무게가 가벼워지다” [“Erasing the Generation Character Lightens the Weight of a Name”], JoongAng Ilbo, November 22, 2010.↩}

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:

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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: