‘My palgojodo experience’ – The Korea Times

Kim Yong-im, a general practitioner of the Korean jokbo, speaks at the “Korea’s Jokbo, Women’s Jokbo: Not just Grandfathers, but Grandmothers too” forum hosted by The Korea Times at Seoul Global Center in downtown Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Kim Yong-im is a mother of six children: three sons and three daughters. A dedicated churchgoer, Kim said she has set out to learn about her roots in 1989.

“Our roots, knowing our ancestors is very very essential,” she said. “I believe Koreans are one of the most committed to respecting and knowing their ancestry.”

Building on that layer of tradition, Kim has been studying and teaching people how to create “palgojodo jokbo,” a kind of family tree, on YouTube.

While the Korean family registers are traditionally hierarchically structured, the palgojodo or “eight great-great-grandfather’s chart” is very different. It spreads out in a soft, almost triangular form, similar to a traditional Korean fan. The person making the family tree starts by tracing their mother’s ancestry, following along maternal lines, then tracing patrilineage.

Kim has also relied heavily on FamilySearch, an international app where people can record and search registers including dates of birth, death, job title and even pseudonyms.

She practices creating palgojodo on her computer with the help of artificial intelligence. It’s a far cry from how she used to trace Korean genealogical records using a Chinese character dictionary because most records feature unusual and rare ideographs. These days, of course, people can type in a Chinese character on their computer and it is immediately translated.

“(Palgodo jokbo) put the individual at the core, while presenting both the patrilineal and the matrilineal line of ancestry and shows the family relationships more visually and easily,” Kim said.