Monday, January 7, 2008

the name game..

so, for the last couple of months of being here, i have been wondering more and more about this family name i have. the name "seto" has asian decent, but no one in the family has been able to pinpoint from where or how this name got to canada.
the search thus far has taken me to fukuoka, japan where this woman showed me the family name seto or sato, in Kanji (the japanese characters).

it looks like this:

i actually bought a stamp that had this name on it, and it has helped me on this search. but just this morning, i received a letter from my great aunt explaining how at least part of the family is from hong kong. now, there wasn't as many details as I would have liked, but this is a start. good ol' wikipedia suggested that the name sito is a very common name in china,
it's characters looking like this:


so where does this lead me? well, my great aunt mentioned some names that might lead me to find out a bit more, but right now i'm a bit stuck.
fortunately on my mother's side, the name bryson has been traced back and found its place of origin in strabane, ireland.
....
I wonder though, as time goes on, and as people become even further removed from their one particular heritage because of our multiculturalism, will there be any concern over one's history? would anyone say "oh yeah? well my great, great, great, great, great, great, great uncle was originally from china, and was the famous war hero... i think.."? one hundred years from now how will we view lineage? what about two hundred years from now? what about five hundred?
if you were to ask a korean about his family tree, i'd be willing to bet that they could trace it back way farther than the average north american (just what it seems like from here). is it good or bad that we can't trace our family's footsteps? i don't know, but i do think it would be cool if i could.
i'm going to continue to search around for the footsteps of my ancestors on my dad's side. i don't know what i'll find, if anything, but i'll be sure to post it here when and if anything comes up.


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