--- begin forwarded text From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] "deleted" children in Japan Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 05:56:48 -0400 To: ip@v2.listbox.com Reply-To: dave@farber.net Begin forwarded message: From: Rodney Van Meter <rdv@sfc.wide.ad.jp> Date: May 30, 2007 10:44:22 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: "deleted" children in Japan Dave, I'm trying not to wear out my welcome on IP, but if you wish... This tidbit bothers me because it speaks to the entire future of our history in the world in which "If Google can't find it, it doesn't exist." A little background: in Japan, you don't have a birth certificate. Each family has a family registry, and children who are born are entered into the registry. I think the same holds for proof of marriage. Generally, the registry has a family name on it (just one -- making it difficult for women to keep their maiden names, but that's not the point here) and a head of household. Then underneath that are the members of the household -- wife and kids. Normally, kids stay on their parents' registry until they marry or the parents die. When you marry, you move off your parents' registry and start your own. You do your registration at the city office, but it's a national registry run by the Justice Department. In the normal progress of things, of course, the last entry for each child is a notation that they moved off of this registry and onto another one. But if a child dies, then a notation is made of that fact. An article in yesterday's Daily Yomiuri http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20070530TDY02009.htm says that they are still in the process of digitizing the registry, and that some deceased children are being "deleted" in the process, simply to keep down the amount of data input work (which undoubtedly has to be done by hand). While it certainly makes sense to prioritize the digitization of currently-active families, as opposed to the historical records of deceased grandparents whose registers consist of no one alive, this choice has the effect of creating an apparently complete registry of an active family that portrays an inaccurate picture of the family history.
From the article:
According to the [Justice] ministry, the names of family members who died before the digitization have been included on the original hard copy of the family registry as one who has been "removed." But the names, the ministry said, have been stricken from the data files. The reasoning behind this was an attempt to reduce the data input into the system--by even only a bit--during the digitization process. Family members who died following the move of data files are still represented in the electronic registers. "You've got it backward if you think digitizing family registers will result in more work," a ministry official said. "Even if the name of the deceased disappears from the data, you can still see it on the original, so it isn't a problem." --- "isn't a problem"! A hundred years from now no one will know that the families in question ever *had* children. Looking at a particular digital record, you wouldn't even know to *ask* to see the original hard copy. Statistics on births and deaths from various causes will no doubt be skewed, let alone the impact on geneology. While it seems likely that eventually they will get around to digitizing historical records, this particular gap in the data seems unlikely to be fixed -- or even fixABLE, without a second by-hand check of every registry comparing the original hard copy with the digitized version. There are gaps in my family history where e.g. the courthouse holding birth certificates burned down. But at least we *know* that there are gaps. Is this a bigger loss than, oh, say, the burning of the library at Alexandria, or the one at Bukhara (~650 and again 1920), or the burning of Mayan texts by the Spanish? Nah. But I mourn the loss of every bit(!) of our collective history. --Rod ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'