I am a founding member of the Nikkei Genealogical Society and a student of Japanese American history with a particular interest in Japanese immigration to Hawaiʻi.

My goal in contributing to Find A Grave is to provide useful information for those visiting memorials on this website. Whenever able, I translate Japanese tombstone inscriptions* and include links to historical documents that can be found on non subscription websites like familysearch.org. These links also serve as the sources for information included in the memorial.

Please notify me if you find any broken links or errors in the biographical information I have posted. I am also willing to help translate Japanese tombstone inscriptions. I can be contacted at my hotmail account (tnosako@hotmail,com).

Please feel free to use my photographs for your own personal use, but I kindly ask that you do not post my photos on other websites without attribution. Thank you.

I am happy to make corrections/additions but ask only that you share your source with me to ensure the accuracy of the information posted. I cannot accept any corrections that cannot be verified. There is a lot of bad genealogical info out there and I don't want to be part of the problem.

* in the interest of accuracy, I generally do not translate posthumous Buddhist names (kaimyō, hōmyō, hōgō).

The following are my suggestions for creating meaningful memorials for Japanese tombstones on Find A Grave:

1) Photograph and upload all sides of the stone that have writing on them. At times, the front face of a Japanese tombstone will only list a posthumous Buddhist name from which the secular name cannot be derived. There is often a great deal of information written on the sides and/or back of the tombstone including secular name, hometown in Japan, date of death, age at death, kamon (family crest), or even additional names of deceased family members.

2) Upload photos at the highest resolution possible.

3) Older Japanese tombstones do not usually list the date of birth. Never assume that death year - age at death = birth year. More often than not, this equation will produce a birth year that is incorrect because of the kazoedoshi method by which Japanese traditionally calculated age.

I am a founding member of the Nikkei Genealogical Society and a student of Japanese American history with a particular interest in Japanese immigration to Hawaiʻi.

My goal in contributing to Find A Grave is to provide useful information for those visiting memorials on this website. Whenever able, I translate Japanese tombstone inscriptions* and include links to historical documents that can be found on non subscription websites like familysearch.org. These links also serve as the sources for information included in the memorial.

Please notify me if you find any broken links or errors in the biographical information I have posted. I am also willing to help translate Japanese tombstone inscriptions. I can be contacted at my hotmail account (tnosako@hotmail,com).

Please feel free to use my photographs for your own personal use, but I kindly ask that you do not post my photos on other websites without attribution. Thank you.

I am happy to make corrections/additions but ask only that you share your source with me to ensure the accuracy of the information posted. I cannot accept any corrections that cannot be verified. There is a lot of bad genealogical info out there and I don't want to be part of the problem.

* in the interest of accuracy, I generally do not translate posthumous Buddhist names (kaimyō, hōmyō, hōgō).

The following are my suggestions for creating meaningful memorials for Japanese tombstones on Find A Grave:

1) Photograph and upload all sides of the stone that have writing on them. At times, the front face of a Japanese tombstone will only list a posthumous Buddhist name from which the secular name cannot be derived. There is often a great deal of information written on the sides and/or back of the tombstone including secular name, hometown in Japan, date of death, age at death, kamon (family crest), or even additional names of deceased family members.

2) Upload photos at the highest resolution possible.

3) Older Japanese tombstones do not usually list the date of birth. Never assume that death year - age at death = birth year. More often than not, this equation will produce a birth year that is incorrect because of the kazoedoshi method by which Japanese traditionally calculated age.