Mini-Bio

Introduction

My name is Kyong-Mi Dillard, née Arcala. I was born and raised in Southern California and have also lived in Hawaii and Oregon. My interest in genealogy is deeply rooted in my family history. Researching my ancestors has become more than a hobby; it is a way of preserving the names, experiences, and stories of people whose lives shaped the generations that followed them.

Genealogy was already an established tradition within my family before I began researching. Several of my relatives created family trees and compiled records through various genealogy websites, and my paternal grandmother, Lenore Evelyn Barron, began researching our family sometime during the 1960s. Her early work provided an important foundation for the research I would eventually undertake myself.  

My Paternal Heritage

My father's ancestry is a blend of French-Canadian and Ilocano heritage. His French-Canadian ancestry came through his mother, while his Ilocano ancestry came through his father. He was born and raised in southwest Detroit, Michigan.

The French-Canadian branch of my family became the starting point for much of my genealogical research. One of the challenges I encountered was that earlier family research had been recorded using anglicized versions of French names. Names such as Pierre had been recorded as Peter, Marie as Mary, and Étienne as Stephen. 

At some point, one of my paternal aunts uploaded a GEDCOM file containing information about our ancestors. When I discovered the anglicized names, I began systematically restoring them to their original French spellings. I corrected the names one by one, not realizing at first where that process would lead.

The results were extraordinary. Once the original French spellings were restored, I began finding corresponding records and family connections throughout the internet. Names that had previously appeared to be unrelated suddenly connected with historical records, genealogical databases, and other researchers. What began as a simple effort to correct names became the beginning of an avid and ongoing genealogical investigation.

The experience taught me how profoundly important the spelling of a name can be in genealogical research. A single change in language can obscure an entire branch of a family. Restoring those names allowed me to see my ancestors more accurately and, in a sense, return their identities to the historical record.

My Maternal Heritage

My maternal ancestry is Korean. My mother was born in Pusan, South Korea, and her parents were also Korean.

My maternal grandfather was Cha Seung-yul (성길 차), who was a journalist and Democrat in South Korea. His life intersected with a turbulent period in Korean history. He was already married and had children when he became involved with my maternal grandmother, Kim Boon-sun. Together, they had six children, including five daughters and a son.

My uncle was born after my grandfather's death. According to the family history passed down to me, he later died from complications resulting from electric torture after being suspected of being a spy or of possessing information considered sensitive by authorities.

These stories form an important, although difficult, part of my maternal family history. They also illustrate one of the challenges of genealogy: some of the most significant events in a family's history are preserved primarily through oral accounts rather than easily accessible documents.

My Maternal Grandmother

Comparatively little is known about my maternal grandmother, Kim Boon-sun. The limited information I have about her has therefore become particularly meaningful to me.

She was described as a conservative woman and a "country girl." She reportedly lost her eyesight during her 50s, possibly as a result of cataracts or glaucoma, and died at the age of 75.

According to my mother, my grandmother gave birth to all of her children at home. Despite the demands of raising a large family, she was known for recovering quickly after childbirth and returning to the care of her children.

At some point in her life, she operated a motel where American soldiers would stay or stop for lunch. My mother was raised near an American military base, placing my family's history within the larger historical circumstances of postwar Korea and the American military presence there.

My mother was also a survivor of the Korean War. She was injured during the war, making her personal history inseparable from one of the defining events of twentieth-century Korean history.

The Missing Pieces of My Maternal Family

Of all the branches of my family history, my maternal ancestry is the area in which I have the greatest sense of incompleteness.

Much of my genealogical research has focused on my paternal family, where records, names, and connections have given me numerous avenues to pursue. My maternal family history is different. Much of what I know has come through family stories passed down by my mother rather than through extensive genealogical documentation.

I sometimes feel that I am missing an important part of my own history because so little is known about the generations that came before my maternal grandparents. The absence of those records has made me even more curious about them.

There are undoubtedly people whose names I do not yet know, places I cannot yet identify, and stories that have been lost with the passing of earlier generations. Discovering those people and reconstructing their lives remains one of the most meaningful goals of my genealogical research.

Genealogy as a Family Legacy

My interest in genealogy did not begin with me. My grandmother's research in the 1960s demonstrates that the desire to understand our family's origins existed within earlier generations as well.

In that sense, I see my own research as a continuation of work that began long before I was born. I am not simply creating a family tree; I am preserving and correcting one.

Every name restored to its original form, every record discovered, and every connection established contributes another piece to the larger history of my family. Genealogy has also shown me that family history is rarely a perfectly preserved narrative. It is assembled from documents, photographs, oral histories, memories, errors, migrations, name changes, and sometimes fragments of information that survive against considerable odds.

My hope is that the research I have undertaken will become part of the family record for future generations, just as my grandmother's research became part of the foundation upon which I began my own.

My Immediate Family

Family remains central to my life beyond genealogy.

I have three children, two sons and a daughter. I was with their father for 21 years, from 1995 until 2016.

I later married my husband, Trevor, in Oregon. Trevor has four biological children, two daughters and two sons, as well as one hanai daughter. All five were born in Hawaii. Through our marriage, I gained five additional children, joining them with my own three children and creating a blended family of eight.

My stepchildren call me "Auntie," a respectful form of address commonly used in Hawaii in much the same way that "Ma'am" or "Miss" may be used elsewhere. I consider the name meaningful because it reflects both the respect within our family and the Hawaiian cultural influence that is an important part of our shared family life.

Life Beyond Genealogy

Although genealogy is one of my greatest interests, it is not my only one. I enjoy scrapbooking, history, reading fiction, writing poetry, hiking, jogging, and solving crossword puzzles.

Many of these interests complement my approach to genealogy. I have always been drawn to history, stories, writing, and the preservation of memories. Genealogy brings all of those interests together.

For me, researching family history is ultimately an exercise in remembering. Behind every name on a family tree was a person who lived a life, experienced circumstances we may never fully understand, formed relationships, faced hardships, and contributed in some way to the generations that followed.

Conclusion

My genealogical journey began with the family research of earlier generations and expanded when I began correcting the names and records that had been handed down to me. What initially appeared to be a simple matter of restoring French names became an extensive exploration of my family's past.

My paternal ancestry has provided me with a rich field of research, while my maternal ancestry has left me with many unanswered questions. Those unanswered questions are not discouraging; they are part of what continues to draw me back to genealogy.

I do not expect to uncover every answer. Some stories may already be lost to time. But every discovery brings me closer to understanding the people who came before me.

In preserving their names and stories, I am also preserving a part of myself.

Just a nifty family tree I whipped up on paper.

If you would like more information about me, please refer to this link.