"Are There Pro-Japanese Collaborators Among My Ancestors?" Surge in Searches Causes Temporary Outage

Recently, the number of people trying to check their ancestors and family roots has increased significantly. How can one check this?

Traffic surged on "Finding Roots," a website that provides information on family names and ancestral seats, causing a temporary access disruption.

On this website, entering a family name and ancestral seat allows users to check the origin and history of the surname, as well as key historical figures.

Due to the influx of visitors, it took time for the main page to load, and the site was temporarily paralyzed.

According to Naver Datalab, search volume for "finding ancestors" on the 13th surged 50-fold compared to the same period last year, and searches for the "Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Collaborators" also saw a significant increase.

This surge in interest is believed to have been triggered by recent pro-Japanese collaboration controversies surrounding the great-grandfather of actor Ha Young.

(Photo courtesy of: "Finding Roots" website, Naver Datalab)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.