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Inventing Ancestors and Limited Empiricism in Chosŏn Korea: A Case of the Kigye Yu Lineage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2024
Abstract
This paper investigates how the members of the Kigye Yu lineage imagined and invented their ancestral roots during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and how such a pursuit of ancestral origins led to subsequent developments in genealogical records. As early as the fifteenth century, Chosŏn elites began to show interests in genealogy that included identifying remote ancestors from ancient times for various political, social, and cultural reasons. From the seventeenth century, the transformation of kinship organization in line with the Confucian ideal of patriliny and elites’ competition for power and prestige intensified genealogical consciousness. Elites became heavily invested in searching for ancestral origins in the form of their lineages’ founders and their tombs. While claiming to rely on documentary and physical evidence, elites often deviated from their professed empiricism and adopted evidence from dubious sources such as oral testimonies and geomancy to rationalize invented ancestral roots. Such pliable approaches, often observed in other early modern cultures such as late imperial China and Europe, opened a floodgate of lineages glorifying their ancestry by pushing their origins back even to mythical founders of ancient Korean and Chinese kingdoms, and adorning their lineages with invented heroes. At the same time, loopholes and blank spots in genealogies enabled quasi- and nonelites to become a member of prominent lineages by grafting their names onto their family trees.
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- © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History
References
1 The Romanization I use here follows the McCune-Reischauer system for Korean and the Hepburn system for Japanese. Korean and Japanese names appear surnames listed first without a comma, except in the case of authors with publications in English and figures well-known in the English-speaking world, such as Masami Kuni. Since many Korean names are identical, Korean names appear in full in all references.
2 Finding Your Roots, Season 4, Episode 2 (premiered on 10 Oct. 2017). Korean families or descent groups identify themselves with a two-word combination of ancestral seat and surname. Therefore, Miryang in Miryang Pak refers to the ancestral seat of this descent group with Pak being the surname of the founding male ancestor. For a study of the Miryang Pak descent group, particularly the origins and development of a non-elite descent line within it, see Park, Eugene Y., A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.
3 For examples, see Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe: 15–17 segi kyebo ŭisik ŭi pyŏnhwa wa sahoe kwan’gyemang [Genealogies and Chosŏn society: changes in genealogical consciousness and social networks between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries] (P’aju: T’aehaksa, 2011), 150–56, 566–76.
4 Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik” [Genealogy and yangban consciousness], Han’guksa simin kangjwa 24 (1999): 20–49.
5 It was originally called Mohye County, which was changed to Kigye and subordinated to Ŭich’ang County during the reign of King Kyŏngdŏk (r. 742–65). In 1018, it became a subordinate county of Kyŏngju and remained so until becoming a district of Kyŏngju sometime before the eighteenth century. See Kim Pu-sik, et al., Samguk sagi [History of three kingdoms] (n.p., originally 1145), 34: 8b–9a. I used the online edition in Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, Han’guksa teit’ŏ peisŭ, http://db.history.go.kr/ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023); Chŏng In-ji, et al., Koryŏsa [History of Koryŏ] (n.p., originally 1451), 57: 5b. I used the online edition in Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, Koryŏ sidae saryo Database, http://db.history.go.kr/KOREA/ (accessed 9 Jan. 2023); Sejong sillok, chiriji [The veritable records of King Sejong, geographic survey] (n.p., originally 1454), 150: 3b–4a. I used the online edition in Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, Chosŏn wangjo sillok [The veritable records of Chosŏn kings], http://sillok.history.go.kr/main/main.do (accessed 4 Jan. 2023); Yi Haeng, et al., Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam [Augmented survey of the geography of Korea] (n.p., 1611, originally 1530), 21: 4a. I used the online edition in Han’guk kojŏn chonghap DB, https://db.itkc.or.kr/ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023); and Kyŏngju-bu, in Kwangyŏdo [Extensive map of Chosŏn Korea] (n.p., 1737). I used the online edition in Kyujanggak wŏnmun kŏmsaek sŏbisŭ, Kojido, http://kyudb.snu.ac.kr/main.do?mid=GZ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023).
6 I borrow the phrase “genealogical research techniques” from Markus Friedrich, “Genealogy and the History of Knowledge,” in Jost Eickmeyer, Markus Friedrich, and Volker Bauer, eds., Genealogical Knowledge in the Making: Tools, Practices, and Evidence in Early Modern Europe (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), 1 n2.
7 For examples of studies that mention the concocted nature of founding ancestors, see Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu [A social history of the Chosŏn dynasty] (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1987), 82–90; Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 37–38; Yi Su-gŏn, Han’guk ŭi sŏngssi wa chokpo [Family names and genealogies in Korea] (Seoul: Sŏul taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2003), 47–50, 104–6; Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 150–56, 566–76; Park, Family of No Prominence, 12–15.
8 Kim Mun-t’aek, “17C Andong Chinsŏng Yi ssi ka wŏnjo myoso ŭi ch’usim kwa munjung chojik ŭi kanghwa” [Recovering the remote ancestors’ graves by Chinsŏng Yi descent group in Andong and strengthening its lineage organization], Kyŏnggi sahak 8 (2004): 333–69.
9 See Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 30, 68–108.
10 For a brief definition of yangban, sadaebu, or sajok, see Kim, Sun Joo, Marginality and Subversion in Korea: The Hong Kyŏngnae Rebellion of 1812 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 8Google Scholar, and 194–95 nn9 and 10.
11 “Haeju O ssi chokto” offers information on nine generations of ancestors and “Andong Kwŏn ssi chokto” thirteen. Chŏng Chae-hun, “Haeju O ssi chokto ko” [A study of the Haeju O genealogical diagram], Tonga yŏn’gu 17 (1989): 313–38; O Yŏng-sŏn, “Chosŏn ch’ogi kagye kirok e taehan il koch’al” [A study of family records], Chŏnnong saron 7 (2001): 305–30; Ch’oe Sun-gwŏn, “Chokpo ijŏn ŭi kagye kirok Andong Kwŏn ssi chokto” [Family records before genealogy and the Andong Kwŏn genealogical diagram], in National Folk Museum of Korea, ed., Andong Kwŏn ssi chokto [Andong Kwŏn genealogical diagram] (Seoul, 2012), 30–54; Kim Hyŏn-yŏng, “Chosŏn sigi sŏndae p’aak pangsik ŭi chokpo panyŏng yangsang—Haeju O ssi chokto rŭl chungsimŭro” [The ways in which ancestors are traced in genealogies during the Chosŏn period—the case of the Haeju O], Han’guk kyebo yŏn’gu 7 (2017): 7–38; Kim, Sun Joo, “Diversity and Innovation in the Genealogical Records of Chosŏn Korea,” Historische Anthropologie 31, 1 (2023): 37–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kim Nan-ok’s study on Koryŏ epitaphs and other commemorative writings shows that Koryŏ and early Chosŏn elites held a wide range of knowledge about their ancestors, in a few cases exceeding ten generations back; “Yŏ-mal Sŏn-ch’o sŏnjo ŭisik kwa chokpo p’yŏnch’an ŭi sinbunjŏk paegyŏng” [The notion of ancestors and the compilation of genealogies during the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn dynasties], Han’guk chungsesa yŏn’gu 25 (2008): 61–65.
12 Sŏ Kŏ-jŏng, “Andong Kwŏn ssi kabo sŏ” [Preface to the Andong Kwŏn genealogy], in idem, Saga munjip [Collected works of Sŏ Kŏ-jŏng] (n.p., 1705), 5: 9b–11b. I used the online edition in Han’guk kojŏn chonghap DB, https://db.itkc.or.kr/ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023).
13 Sejong sillok [The veritable records of King Sejong] (n.p., 1454), 1449/2/22 (lunar). I used the online edition in Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, Chosŏn wangjo sillok, http://sillok.history.go.kr/main/main.do (accessed 4 Jan. 2023).
14 Song Chun-ho argues that the actual (not mythical or fabricated) founding ancestor might be from the generation when multiple descendants were recorded; Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 82–90. In the case of Andong Kwŏn, therefore, Kwŏn Su-p’yŏng and Kwŏn Su-hong could be genuine founding ancestors of the two branches of Andong Kwŏn: the Ch’umil-gong and Pogya-gong branches, respectively. Miyajima Hiroshi, however, examined the genealogy more carefully and argued that in the case of the Ch’umil-gong branch, Kwŏn Su-p’yŏng’s great-grandson Kwŏn Pu should be regarded as the true founding ancestor because records concerning the two generations between Su-p’yŏng and Pu are scarce. Miyajima Hiroshi, “Andong Kwŏn ssi Sŏnghwabo rŭl t’onghaesŏ pon Han’guk chokpo ŭi kujojŏk t’ŭksŏng” [Structural characteristics of Korean genealogies seen through the 1476 edition of the Andong Kwŏn Genealogy], Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 62 (2008): 201–41, 203–11, 227–29, 237.
15 Because both a son’s and daughter’s lines were continuously recorded, of around eight thousand names appearing in the Andong Kwŏn Genealogy of 1476 only about 380 are members of the Andong Kwŏn while the rest have different surnames. Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 33. On equal inheritance practices until the mid-seventeenth century, see Ch’oe Chae-sŏk, “Chosŏn sidae ŭi sangsokche e kwanhan yŏn’gu—punjaegi ŭi punsŏk e ŭihan chŏpkŭn” [The institution of inheritance during the Chosŏn dynasty—an analysis of inheritance records], Yŏksa hakpo 53/54 (1972): 99–150; Deuchler, Martina, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992), 203–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peterson, Mark A., Korean Adoption and Inheritance: Case Studies in the Creation of a Classic Confucian Society (Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1996)Google Scholar. For several different styles of genealogies developed from Northern Song China (960–1127), see Chao, Sheau-yueh J., “Researching Your Asian Roots for Chinese-Americans,” Journal of East Asian Libraries 129 (2003): 27–30 Google Scholar. The “Ouyang style,” which organizes members of a descent group by generation in horizontally lined segments on each page, was most popular in Chosŏn.
16 Miyajima, “Andong Kwŏn ssi Sŏnghwabo,” 213–36.
17 Yi Chŏng-ran, “Chokpo ŭi chanyŏ surok pangsik ŭl t’onghaesŏ pon Yŏ-mal Sŏn-ch’o chokpo ŭi p’yŏnch’an paegyŏng—Andong Kwŏn ssi Sŏnghwabo Munhwa Yu ssi Kajŏngbo rŭl chungsimŭro” [The compilation strategies during the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn dynasties seen through the ways in which children were recorded—a study of the Andong Kwŏn Genealogy of 1476 and the Munhwa Yu Genealogy of 1565], Han’guk chungsesa yŏn’gu 25 (2008): 117–55.
18 For specific examples from Koryŏ, see Paek Sŭng-jong, “Koryŏ hugi ŭi ‘palcho hogu’” [“Eight ancestral records for household registers” in late Koryŏ], Han’guk hakpo 10, 1 (1984): 208–13. The ŭm protection privileges provided sons, grandsons, or other close relatives of high-ranking officials with special access to bureaucratic positions. For specific regulations and practices during the Koryŏ period, see Duncan, John B., The Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 60–61 Google Scholar.
19 Paek Sŭng-jong, “Koryŏ hugi ŭi ‘palcho hogu,’” 212; Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 31; Yi Su-gŏn, Han’guk ŭi sŏngssi wa chokpo, 38–40; Sim Sŭng-gu, “Chosŏn ch’ogi chokpo ŭi kanhaeng hyŏngt’ae e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study of genealogical publications in early Chosŏn], Kuksagwan nonch’ong 89 (2000): 1–34, 26; Yi Chŏng-ran, “Chokpo ŭi chanyŏ surok pangsik,” 134–51; Kim Nan-ok, “Yŏ-mal Sŏn-ch’o sŏnjo ŭisik,” 71–77. Robin Fox, in his study of kinship and marriage, notes that genealogical knowledge defined many of a person’s “most significant rights, duties and sentiments”; Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), 14. Early modern European noble families invested in genealogies for their political and social functions such as being proofs of nobility, succession of rulership, and noble titles, inheritances, and marriages. At the same time, they produced genealogies to boost their reputations and support their social aspirations. Like in Chosŏn, genealogy played an essential role in constructing early modern elite identities in Europe. See Friedrich, Markus, “Genealogy as Archive-Driven Research Enterprise in Early Modern Europe,” Osiris 32 (2017): 65–84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedrich, “Genealogy and the History of Knowledge.”
20 Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 36.
21 Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 110–28.
22 Lee, Sangkuk, “The Impacts of Birth Order and Social Status on the Genealogy Register in Thirteenth- to Fifteenth-Century Korea,” Journal of Family History 35, 2 (2010): 115–27Google Scholar. Kim Nan-ok concurs that early Chosŏn genealogies were a product of a shared social consciousness of belonging to a privileged social group; “Yŏ-mal Sŏn-ch’o sŏnjo ŭisik,” 78–83. Son Pyŏng-gyu also points out that elites in late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn compiled complex ancestral records, including genealogies, as a way to document their prominent ancestral roots and marriage relations; “13–16 segi hojŏk kwa chokpo ŭi kyebo hyŏngt’ae wa kŭ t’ŭksŏng” [The types and characteristics of household registers and genealogies in thirteenth- to sixteenth-century Korea], Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 71 (2010): 7–41.
23 Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 22–23.
24 Wagner, Edward W., “Two Genealogies and Women’s Status in Early Yi Dynasty Korea,” in Kendall, Laurel and Peterson, Mark, eds., Korean Women: View from the Inner Room (New Haven: East Rock Press, 1983), 23–32 Google Scholar.
25 Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 24–29; Duncan, Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty, 30–35.
26 Yi Chong-sŏ argues that the loss of household registers preserved by the state and privately held family records during the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century, and the rise of the new elite group with non-noble origins in the fourteenth, motivated the established nobles to seek out deeper ancestral records to differentiate themselves from the new elites. Yi Chong-sŏ, “Koryŏ p’alcho hogusik sŏngnip sigi wa sŏngnip wŏnin,” [The question of when and why the household register format displaying all eight ancestral records formed], Han’guk chungsesa yŏn’gu 25 (2008): 5–29.
27 For the process of compiling and revising the Koryŏsa and those who contributed to the works, see Graeme R. Reynolds, “The Histories of Koryŏ: Their Production, Circulation, and Reception from the Chosŏn Dynasty to the Present,” PhD diss., Harvard University, 2021, ch. 3.
28 Ha Yŏn, Kyŏngsang-do chiriji [Gazetteer of Kyŏngsang Province], in Han’gukhak munhŏn yŏn’guso, ed., Han’guk chiriji ch’ongsŏ: chŏn’guk chiriji 1 [Comprehensive collection of gazetteers: dynasty-wide gazetteers 1] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1983).
29 For specific examples of using the Koryŏsa or Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam, see Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 69–70. Additional source materials for compiling genealogical records in early Chosŏn included household registers, commemorative writings such as mortuary plaque inscriptions, inheritance documents, oral traditions, and other family’s records (ibid., 68–72).
30 Ibid., 61, 344–65. Song Chun-ho counted only about thirty genealogical records that were compiled between the mid-fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries; Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 32.
31 For efforts of local elites to restore the local yangban association called hyangan after the wars, see Kawashima, Fujiya, “The Local Gentry Association in Mid-Yi Dynasty Korea: A Preliminary Study of the Ch’angnyŏng Hyangan, 1600–1838,” Journal of Korean Studies 2 (1980): 113–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kawashima, Fujiya, “A Study of Hyangan: Kin Groups and Aristocratic Localism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Korean Countryside,” Journal of Korean Studies 5 (1984): 3–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sun Joo Kim, “Chosŏn hugi P’yŏngan-do Chŏngju ŭi hyangan unyŏng kwa yangban munhwa” [The management of the local yangban roster and elite culture in Chŏngju, P’yŏngan Province, in the late Chosŏn period], Yŏksa hakpo 185 (2005): 65–105. For the Suan Yi descent group’s effort to commemorate its ancestors by adopting several strategies such as documenting its ancestors’ notable moral behavior, adorning their graves, and compiling and publishing its genealogy, see Kim, Sun Joo, Voice from the North: Resurrecting Regional Identity through the Life and Work of Yi Sihang (1672–1736) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 23–31 Google Scholar.
32 The demographic/structural model for explaining waves of state breakdown in early modern world history was developed by Jack A. Goldstone in his book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
33 Sun Joo Kim, Marginality and Subversion in Korea, 36–39. For a discussion of how this prolonged increase in the elite population shaped politics and society in late Chosŏn, see ibid., 8–9, 35–47.
34 Graeme Reynolds argues that the History of Koryŏ, whose compilation was completed by 1451 after several revisions, was published in movable type at least twice by 1456 with limited circulation within officialdom. After its woodblock edition became available in 1613, the book became much more accessible. More than a hundred copies are preserved in archives and libraries in Korea, Japan, the United States, and other countries (ibid., ch. 3).
35 A study of the surnames of officials who appear in the Samguk sagi finds only 377 with known surnames, which numbered less than twenty. No one with the surname Yu held any position. During the Silla period, it was quite rare for even elites to have a Chinese-style surname. Chŏn Tŏk-chae, “T’ongil Silla kwanin ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa kwallyoje unyŏng” [A study on the characteristics of the government officials and the management of the appointment system in Unified Silla], Yoksa munhwa yŏn’gu 34 (2009): 112, 148–50.
36 Kigye Yu ssi taejonghoe [Lineage association of the Kigye Yu], http://gigyeyussi.jangsoft.kr/sub_01/sub_05.html (accessed 9 Jan. 2023).
37 Yu Ch’i-ung, comp., and Sim Kyŏng-ho, trans., Kugyŏk Kigye munhŏn (hereafter KM) [Documents concerning the Kigye Yu lineage in Korean translation] (Seoul: Kigye Yu ssi taejonghoe, (chae) Puun changhakhoe, 2014), 1: 39 f. and 58 f.
38 KM, 1: 75–78.
39 Friedrich, “Genealogy as Archive-Driven Research,” 70.
40 KM, 1: 39 f., 58 f., and 75–78. Yu Myŏng-ham, compiler, Kigye Yu ssi chokpo [Genealogy of the Kigye Yu lineage] (Yŏnsan-hyŏn: s.n., 1704), 1: 1a–b. I used the online edition in Kyujanggak Han’gukhak yŏn’guwŏn, Kyujanggak wŏnmun kŏmsaek sŏbisŭ, https://kyu.snu.ac.kr/ (accessed 23 Jan. 2023).
41 For a keyword search for the Koryŏsa, I used the Koryŏ sidae saryo Database, http://db.history.go.kr/KOREA/ (accessed 23 Jan. 2023).
42 Yu Kye, Sinam sŏnsaeng munjip [Collected works of Yu Kye] (n.p., 1690), 18: 3a–5a. I used the online edition in Han’guk kojŏn chonghap DB: https://db.itkc.or.kr/ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023). For Yu Yŏ-hae’s entry in the 1704 genealogy, see Yu Myŏng-ham, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 1: 1b. For the entry on Yu Yŏ-hae in the Koryŏsa, see Chŏng In-ji, et al., Koryŏsa, 129: 50b–51a.
43 Cho Chong-un, Ssijok wŏlly [Origins of descent groups] (Seoul: Pogyŏng munhwasa, 1991), 701–5.
44 According to Yu Kye’s preface to the 1645 genealogy, Kigye Yu’s genealogical records for earlier ancestors were largely incomplete, missing entries because there were only “small-scale family records” (sosŭng) handed down from their ancestors. Yu Kye, Sinam sŏnsaeng munjip, 18: 3a–5a; and KM, 6: 18–20. According to Yu Myŏng-gŏn (1664–1724), there were two separate family records, each more than a hundred years old, when he was involved in compiling the 1704 edition. KM, 6: 22. Yu Kwang-gi (1674–1757) says that books and family records (kajang) were destroyed during the Manchu invasion of 1636. KM, 1: 346. Son Pyŏng-gyu shows how accumulated household registers could become sources for genealogical compilations. Son Pyŏng-gyu, “13–16 segi hojŏk kwa chokpo,” 21–23.
45 All information concerning the higher civil service exam passers is from Han’guk yŏktae inmul chonghap chŏngbo sisŭt’em, http://people.aks.ac.kr/index.aks (accessed 9 Jan. 2023). Yu Hyŏn’s birth and death years are in KM, 1: 114.
46 KM, 1: 201. The tombstone inscription for Yŏ-rim’s brother Yŏ-hae or Sun-gŏ (? –1514) composed by Kim Chŏng (1486–1521) in 1517 only reports his father Ki-ch’ang. KM, 1: 193 f.
47 KM, 1: 94 f., 105–8, 122–25. Kang descended from these three men, and Kang’s descendants who later formed the Chasan-gong branch were the most successful among the Kigye Yu in producing civil service examination degree-holders and officials throughout Chosŏn. Kim, Sun Joo, “Yu Taech’ing Family Documents and the Kigye Yu of Puyŏ,” Acta Koreana 23, 1 (2020): 65–96 Google Scholar, 72.
48 KM, 1: 390.
49 Ibid., 1: 132–34.
50 Ibid., 1: 342.
51 Ibid., 1: 45. This record was made by Yu Myŏng-roe (1652–1712).
52 Ibid., 1: 343, 392.
53 Ha Yŏn, Kyŏngsang-do chiriji, 130; Yi Haeng, et al., Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam, 21: 4a–5a. The surviving manuscript copy of the Kyŏngsang-do chiriji was kept in the provincial governor’s office in Kyŏngju. Yu is listed as one of the four indigenous surname groups (t’osŏng), along with Yang, Ik, and Yun, that originated in Kigye. The Sejong sillok, chiriji (The veritable records of King Sejong, geographic survey), 150: 4b, dated the mid-fifteenth century, also lists the four indigenous surname groups from Kigye and adds one (Kim) as a move-in surname (naesŏng). However, this Geographic Survey, as a part of the Veritable Records of King Sejong was not available for public viewing.
54 Ha Yŏn, Kyŏngsang-do chiriji, 130; Yi Haeng, et al., Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam, 21: 4a–5a.
55 KM, 1: 322–24. In his preface to the 1645 genealogy, Yu Kye comments that the prominence of the Kigye Yu originated from Yu Yŏ-hae’s son Tŭk-sŏn. KM, 6: 18–20.
56 Such commemorative activities were popular since the sixteenth century. Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 147–50.
57 Sun Joo Kim, “Yu Taech’ing Family Documents,” 73 f.
58 KM, 1: 400.
59 Yu Kye, Sinam sŏnsaeng munjip, 18: 3a–5a; KM, 6: 18–20; and Yu Myŏng-ham, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 1: 1a–b. Yu Myŏng-ham (1662–?) in his postscript to the 1704 genealogy mentions that there were many errors in the earlier 1645 edition. KM, 1: 20–22. Updated editions of the genealogy were compiled in 1704, 1738, 1786, ca. 1864 or 1867, 1912, 1964, and 1991.
60 Yi Su-gŏn, Han’guk ŭi sŏngssi wa chokpo, 26–46.
61 Yi Su-gŏn (ibid., 61) points out that many yangban families used the same story: that their ancestors of hyangni status in the Koryŏ did not submit to the new dynasty to anachronistically rationalize their hyangni origin.
62 Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 68–108; Yi Su-gŏn, Han’guk ŭi sŏngssi wa chokpo, 107–23; Duncan, Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty, 30–35.
63 Duncan, Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty, 52–153, 213–22; Hwang, Kyung Moon, Beyond Birth: Social Status in the Emergence of Modern Korea (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 161–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kim, Sun Joo, “Fragmented: The T’ongch’ŏng Movements by Marginalized Status Groups in Late Chosŏn Korea,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 68, 1: 135–68Google Scholar, 138–43.
64 KM, 1: 567, and 6: 18–20.
65 Ibid., 1: 75–78.
66 Other key Confucian values include filial piety and chastity. For example, Yi Si-hang (1672–1736) from Unsan, P’yŏngan Province, tried to portray his ancestors as champions of filial piety. Sun Joo Kim, Voice from the North, 23–31. On promoting the value of chastity, see Kim, Jungwon, “Yŏl (烈): Chaste Martyrdom and Literati Writing in Late Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910),” in Kim, Charles R., et al., eds., Beyond Death: The Politics of Suicide and Martyrdom in Korean History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019): 24–44 Google Scholar.
67 KM, 1: 50, 53 f. Yu Myŏng-gŏn criticized this statement by Yu Ok-kyŏng as inaccurate. Ibid., 1: 54.
68 Yu Myŏng-ham, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 1: 1a.
69 KM, 1: 53 f. Sim Yŏl’s fifth-generation descendant became Queen Tanŭi (1686–1718), King Kyŏngjong’s (r. 1720–1724) wife. Sun Joo Kim, “Yu Taech’ing Family Documents,” 82.
70 The information about the lawsuit is collected in KM, 1: 39–60. Yu Ha-gyŏm is the great-great-grandson of Yu Ho (figure 2).
71 The boundary of a tomb was 100 paces surrounding it. Ch’oe Hang, et al., Kyŏngguk taejŏn [Great code of administration] (n.p., 1661[1485]), 3: 36b. I used the online edition in Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, Chosŏn sidae pŏmnyŏng charyo, http://db.history.go.kr/law/ (accessed 9 Jan. 2023). The tomb’s owner (or tomb occupant’s family) reserved the right to occupy the land surrounding the tomb. For lawsuits concerning the violation of graves and illegal burials, see Kim Kyŏng-suk, Chosŏn ŭi myoji sosong [Gravesite litigations during the Chosŏn dynasty] (P’aju: Munhak Tongne, 2012); Kim, Sun Joo and Kim, Jungwon, Wrongful Deaths: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth-Century Korea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013), 47–54 Google Scholar, 129–203.
72 KM, 1: 45–53.
73 Ibid., 1: 45 f.
74 Ibid., 1: 46.
75 Ibid., 1: 50–52. I took a field trip to the tomb of Yu Sam-jae on 14 June 2023. The site is still remote, deep in the mountains, and requires more than an hour of climbing steep hills from the Puun-jae, a graveside facility located in a valley about 100 meters below the tomb. The Kigye Yu lineage recently built a paved, one-lane road with extremely sharp curves that connects the public road to the tomb. I would like to thank the Kigye Yu lineage for providing access to the private road and other accommodations for visiting the tomb and the Puun-jae.
76 Ibid., 1: 45–47, 50–52. For a similar case in which hearsay and geomantic merit were used as evidence in a lawsuit to verify one’s ancestral tombs in the seventeenth century, see Kim Mun-t’aek, “17C Andong Chinsŏng Yi ssi ka”; Deuchler, Martina, Under the Ancestors’ Eyes: Kinship, Status, and Locality in Premodern Korea (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), 200–4Google Scholar.
77 KM, 1: 53. Although Yu Myŏng-gŏn simply states that the Sŏ Hon couple’s grave was not removed because it was an old grave, the Yu lineage might have allowed it to remain to reward the Sŏ family for siding with them in the lawsuit against the Chŏng family. During my field trip to Yu Sam-jae’s tomb, I learned that the descendants of the Sŏ family had finally removed the couple’s grave a few years before.
78 Yu Myŏng-ham, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 8: 2a.
79 Cho Chong-un, Ssijok wŏllyu, 701.
80 A k’an (or kan) is a unit for measuring the size of a house; 1 k’an refers to the width between two bearing poles, or approximately 2.4 meters. Yi Chŏng, Changin kwa tak namu ka hamkke mandŭn yŏksa, Chosŏn ŭi kwahak kisulsa [Technoscience of tak and artisans: resourceful evolution of Chosŏn papermaking] (Seoul: P’urŭn yŏksa, 2023), 283. The facility is now called Puun-jae.
81 KM, 1: 62 f.
82 Ibid., 1: 39 f. Yu Ch’ŏk-ki is a fifth-generation descendant of Yu Yŏng (figure 2).
83 Ibid., 1: 56 f.
84 Ibid., 1: 57 f.
85 Ibid., 1: 58–60.
86 The story adds that a person picked up the child and raised him, and the place where the child descended became his home. The child’s post reached Ach’an, but there is no way to verify his name and descendants because there is no historical record. In recording the earliest ancestors of the Kigye Yu, Yu Han-jun notes that some ancestral records before Yu Yŏ-hae have been lost. In addition, he states that he cannot write an individual biography for his direct ancestors before Yu Hae because there are no existing texts to rely on. Yu Han-jun, Chajŏ [My own literary works] (n.p., ca. 1783–1810), 14: 1a–2b. I used the online edition in Han’guk kojŏn chonghap DB: https://db.itkc.or.kr/ (accessed 20 July 2023). Yu was a prolific writer who developed an unorthodox literary approach, pursuing an individual style of writing rather than following precedent, which was valued among Neo-Confucian writers. See Pak Kyŏng-nam, Chŏ mada ŭi kil: Yu Han-jun p’yŏngjŏn [My own way: a biography of Yu Han-jun] (P’aju: Kŭl hangari, 2021).
87 Yi Su-gŏn, Han’guk ŭi sŏngssi wa chokpo, 104–6.
88 KM, 1: 60–61.
89 Ibid., 1: 62–67.
90 Collaboration among kin members, including matriline descendants living in the capital and in the countryside, and reliance on bureaucratic power to facilitate various projects honoring founding and remote ancestors were common. See Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 248–54.
91 Deuchler, Under the Ancestors’ Eyes, 2.
92 Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 36.
93 Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 20–23, 32 f.
94 Kim Mun-t’aek, “17C Andong Chinsŏng Yi ssi ka,” 335.
95 For examples of rejecting ancient ancestry based on empirical reasoning, see Kwŏn Ki-sŏk, Chokpo wa Chosŏn sahoe, 154–55.
96 One example comes from Yu Sŏng-ju, who wrote an essay concerning Yu Ŭi-sin in 1795. After lamenting the lack of family sources that might elaborate Ŭi-sin’s life, Sŏng-ju states his intention to supplement the existing record. He added broad historical context relating to Ŭi-sin’s life during the dynastic transition from Silla and Koryŏ, but also a story that glorified Ŭi-sin and emphasized his righteousness and loyalty toward the fallen kingdom. KM, 1: 75–77.
97 Yi Su-gŏn, “Chokpo wa yangban ŭisik,” 43 f. Not all court cases were influenced by dubious evidence such as hearsay and geomantic speculation. Recent studies show that the final decisions of the local court in various civil litigations were based on verifiable written evidence rather than testimony. Kim Kyŏng-suk, “Kyŏlsong iban kwa sosong hyŏnjang, kŭriko nobi ŭi sam” [The court and nobi’s life as seen through the court’s decision], Han’guk munhwa 83 (2018): 309–34; idem, “Chejumin ŭi chaesan sangsok sosong kwa sŏjŭng—1663 nyŏn Cheju-mok kyŏlsong iban ŭl chungsimŭro” [Documentary evidence of the Cheju people’s inheritance dispute—focusing on the Cheju County decision of 1663], Komunsŏ yŏn’gu 54 (2019): 39–71.
98 Siu, Helen F., “Recycling Tradition: Culture, History, and Political Economy in the Chrysanthemum Festivals of South China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 4 (1990): 765–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 779 n34, 788.
99 Faure, David, “The Lineage as a Cultural Invention: The Case of the Pearl River Delta,” Modern China 1, 1 (1989): 4–36 Google Scholar.
100 Ciappelli, Giovanni, “Family Memory: Functions, Evolution, Recurrences,” in Ciappelli, Giovanni and Rubin, Patricia Lee, eds., Art, Memory, and Family in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 29–30 Google Scholar.
101 For how general population growth had a much greater impact on early modern European elites by creating intense competition for limited resources and prestige, see Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World.
102 Friedrich, “Genealogy as Archive-Driven Research,” 69–74.
103 Friedrich, “Genealogy and the History of Knowledge,” 4.
104 Yu Myŏng-ham, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, pŏmnye, 1: 1a.
105 Yu Ch’i-sŏn, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo [Genealogy of the Kigye Yu lineage] (n.p., 1867), 1: 1a–b. I used the online edition in Kyujanggak Han’gukhak yŏn’guwŏn, Kyujanggak wŏnmun kŏmsaek sŏbisŭ, https://kyu.snu.ac.kr/ (accessed 4 Jan. 2023).
106 Yu Ch’i-ung comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo [Genealogy of the Kigye Yu lineage] (Seoul: Kigye Yu ssi kyŏngjongjung, 1965), 1: 61.
107 Yu Ch’i-sŏn, comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 1: 1a–b; Yu Ch’i-ung comp., Kigye Yu ssi chokpo, 1: 24.
108 Scholars find that the phenomenon was widespread in late Chosŏn. Miyajima, “Andong Kwŏn ssi Sŏnghwabo,” 237; Paek Sŭng-jong, “Wijo chokpo ŭi yuhaeng” [Popularization of fabricated genealogies], Han’guksa simin kangjwa 24 (1999): 67–85. In contrast, Song Chun-ho argues that the fabrication of genealogy did not and could not take place widely because each descent group was keen to preserve its integrity, and outright forgery would be discovered in the tightly-knit yangban society. Song Chun-ho, Chosŏn sahoesa yŏn’gu, 41–45. Despite evidence of fabrication, I regard genealogies as usable primary source, especially when complemented by other sources. As for the open-ended nature of genealogical knowledge and production in early modern Europe, see Friedrich, “Genealogy and the History of Knowledge,” 5.