In partnership with the Irei Project, this new
collection of Japanese incarceration records preserves important
history and enables meaningful family history discoveries for
people of Japanese descent
LEHI,
Utah, April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of
a philanthropic initiative to make history that is at risk of being
forgotten available to everyone for free, Ancestry® – the global
leader in family history – announced it has published and made
freely available on its site the first comprehensive list of over
125,000 persons of Japanese descent who were unjustly imprisoned
between December 1942 and
January 1948.
Originally compiled by the Irei Project, the list of names was
first published in a 1,000-page book (The Ireichō) at the Japanese
American National Museum and as an online monument (The Ireizō).
Now, people around the world will also be able to digitally search
the collection on Ancestry to gain critical information about their
family history including names, birthdates, and incarceration
locations.
"We're proud to partner with Ancestry to make this accurate and
comprehensive list of every person of Japanese heritage
incarcerated during WWII available to everyone," says Duncan Ryuken
Williams, director of the Irei Project. "By honoring their names,
we proudly represent their individuality, their personhood, and
their dignity, not afforded to them in their unjust
incarceration."
By publishing this collection of names and making it available
on its site for free, Ancestry is further helping to ensure the
facts and the experiences of those who were unjustly imprisoned by
the U.S. Army, Department of Justice, and War Relocation Authority
(WRA) are preserved for future generations.
When paired with the almost 350,000 records related to Japanese
incarceration already available for free within the Ancestry
ecosystem, this comprehensive collection of names will allow users
to better find their family and explore the other record
collections from this time period to provide context and other
details about their family and experience. The existing free
companion collections include:
- U.S., Japanese Americans Relocated During World War II,
1942-1946
- U.S., Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation
Centers, 1942-1946
- U.S., World War II Japanese-American Internment Camp Documents,
1942-1946
"Ancestry has a unique opportunity to preserve the stories of
our country's history, even the challenging ones, and to make that
information available to the descendants of those who experienced
it firsthand," says Head of US Content and Philanthropic
Initiatives, Dr. Lisa Pearl. "By
making this collection and others like it available for free, we
invite people to unlock more discoveries about their ancestors and
honor their memory."
Explore and search the new collection and others like it for
free here.
About Ancestry®
Ancestry®, the global leader in family history, empowers
journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives. With our
unparalleled collection of more than 60 billion records, over 3
million subscribers and over 25 million people in our growing DNA
network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new
level of understanding about their lives. Over the past 40 years,
we've built trusted relationships with millions of people who have
chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving, and sharing
the most important information about themselves and their
families.
About the Irei Project
The Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American
incarceration is a multi-faceted project that seeks to address the
attempted erasure of those individuals of Japanese heritage who
experienced wartime incarceration by memorializing their names. By
placing their names front and center and memorializing each
incarceree as a distinct individual instead of a generalized
community, the Irei National Monument Project seeks to expand and
re-envision what a monument is through three distinct, but
interlinking elements: a sacred book of names as monument
(Ireichō), a website monument (Ireizō), and sculptural
installations (Ireihi).
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SOURCE Ancestry