Jenny Dargren poses during a Chunbun ceremony, an annual spring ancestral rite at "Balhae Village" in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, March 20. Courtesy of Jenny Dargren
Jenny Dargren, 51, a Korean adoptee to Sweden, says her yearslong search for her biological family led to an unexpected discovery — a possible lineage linked to Dae Jo-yeong, founder of Korea's ancient Balhae Kingdom (698-926).
Born in Korea under the name Tae Jeong-sun, Dargren was adopted to Sweden as an infant in 1975 with little known background.
She had questioned her identity for most of her life and began actively searching for her origins around 2014.
"I reached out to a lot of government agencies and submitted DNA to multiple databases, but to find my biological family needs their approval, so everything remained sealed," Dargren told The Korea Times in a recent interview.
However, a different route led to a breakthrough.
After multiple inquiries to adoption agencies and local governments, Dargren was eventually connected — through officials in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province — to members of the "Yeongsun Tae" clan.
The Tae clan is centered in a small community known as "Balhae Village" in Gyeongsan, where dozens of families bearing the Tae surname, believed to be descendants of Dae Jo-yeong, live together. The surname is considered rare in Korea, with fewer than 10,000 members nationwide.
Clan members compared their jokbo (genealogical records) with Dargren's available personal information, including her adoption documents, and told her she likely belongs to the lineage.
An official at Balhae Village told The Korea Times that, based on the records, Dargren is believed to belong to the 27th generation of the Tae lineage, citing the generational naming pattern in her Korean name. The official added that her family origin, "Yeongsun Tae," was recorded in her birth registration.
Source: Korea Times News
