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Step 2

Roots Report

The full village report. For families who know their ancestor's town or village and want its history, temples and records.

$390
Delivery: About 1 month from payment

What you get

  • Usually 25–40 pages, with maps and a timeline
  • Three likely family temples, with their Buddhist sect and distance from the village
  • Old books and documents that name your surname, and where to see them
  • Edo-period (1603–1868) and earlier records of the family name
  • Your personal guide to requesting your koseki: which city office, how to pay from your country
  • Full list of every source checked
  • Format: A4 PDF of usually 25–40 pages; prints on US Letter with "fit to page"
  • The length depends on how many records survive for your name in the village; we confirm it in our order confirmation email.
It covers your surname, its village and the families of that name in the records. It does not prove your own line. Your koseki traces your line back to the 1870s–80s (the oldest registers you can obtain are the 1886 format, though they name people born earlier in the 1800s). The link to the older families of the name usually rests on where the name is found, not on documents, so our charts draw it as a dotted line.

What you need to provide

  • Your ancestor's surname. Roman letters are fine. If you happen to know it in kanji, add it; it narrows the search, but it is not needed.
  • The town or village. If you know only the prefecture, we can still begin.
  • That is all. No koseki or other documents are needed; the Report includes a guide to requesting the koseki.

Price and payment

  • We confirm the order by email and send a payment link.
  • Prices are in US dollars and include all our fees for the PDF.
  • Delivery times are estimates, not guarantees. Every record gets the care it needs, so if we expect a delay, we will let you know by email.

How it fits with our other services

This is Step 2, the full village report. Families without a koseki go Step 1 (Roots Snapshot) → Step 2 → Step 3 (Family Chronicle); you can start at any step. Compare all services at a glance.

Before thisRoots Snapshot ($29) — Not sure yet? The $29 Roots Snapshot is a short first look at the same village.
After thisFamily Chronicle ($2,900) — The Report is required before a Family Chronicle or a Chronicle + Family Tree. It shows whether enough records survive for a book; if not, we tell you so, and you need not buy anything more.

See a sample

Every service has a full public sample (Chronicle + Family Tree shares the Family Chronicle and Koseki Family Tree samples). The family in the sample is fictional; the places, records and research are real.

Read the sample on the webDownload the sample as delivered (PDF, 1.8 MB)

Roots Report — $390. Tell us about your family, and we reply by email within two business days.

Get my Roots Report