I heard Gi Tae clearing his throat beside me, catching my attention enough to break eye contact with my supposed great grandfather’s image. My eyes are drawn back to the circa 1800s photograph and I wish Edna was with me.

“I’m thinking creepy is an understatement,” I said, my eyes narrowed on the photograph, looking for other things I really don’t know. “That’s a lot of medals and ribbons there. Ex-military, then.”

“The clan Lee Jinki belonged to weren’t aristocrats or the Korean nobility. You’ll discover more once you read further and when you explore your estate. There is so much history in this place,” said Gi Tae. “But just to pre-empt your discovery, Lee Jinki’s forefathers were of the chungin class, members of the defense and military arm of the ruling dynasty. If you search archives in the town hall, you’ll see their names in the annals.”

“Seeing this tells me all the men in the family must have been required to don the uniform and serve the monarch and country.” I count the medals—there were six of them. “This one looks interesting.” I point to a circular medal with something that looked like a bird holding something in its beak.

Gi Tae peers at the photograph and nods. “That medal was supposedly given to a select number of individuals by Queen Myeongseong herself. Supposedly because no records exist of her giving those out and to whom. The only proof to that is written in the annals of the estate. I haven’t told you yet, have I? Lee Jinki belonged to the same clan that the Queen’s mother belonged to. They were distant cousins, if so.”

Why a Korean queen would award my ancestor a rare medal-and most likely her high regard-was a point to wonder about. Research and education taught me how family and clan associations were prioritized and given much weight in Korea. But what did my great grandfather have that earned him that regard from the queen herself?

I pause for a moment when a long-forgotten fact surged in my thoughts.

“Wait a minute. Queen Myeongseong? As in, the Queen Myeongseong? The lady who was killed for being progressive or something like that?”

Gi Tae chuckled. “Yes, the same one.”

I wanted to ask Gi Tae more questions but the rumbling thunder signalled his need to get back to his apartment.

“I’m sorry for leaving but the weather will make the road downhill quite dangerous to drive on,” he said, waving me to sit back down when I rose. “No, stay, please! I can see my way out. I have business to attend to in Seoul tomorrow, and that includes completing the papers I will need you to look at and sign for the estate turnover. So I will be back the day after the next. I’ll see you then, Mister Kang.”

“Just Ji Soo, don’t forget!” I exclaimed, shaking his hand. I watched him go and close the parlor door before returning to my seat and the estate’s diary. I spend a few more moment with the photographs, inwardly congratulating my kind-faced ancestor his luck in securing a Japanese noblewoman for a wife, which must have cemented his status both in Korean and Japanese society.

Still, a thought nagged at me. I felt the compulsion to go on the internet and look for sources on the time of Queen Myeongseong. Skipping over articles and data on the Korean drama series with the same name, I zeroed in on the scholarly ones and extracts from published books on the era.

Hwaseong Lee clan…

Married at 16…

Educated, feisty, curious…

Unbendingly progressive…

Assassinated by Japanese aristocracy…

I end my mini-research with a sense of foreboding. I look again at my ancestor’s face on his wedding photograph and back at the portrait. In the photograph, he seemed somehow resigned to his fate. In the portrait, he looked more comfortable though the artist still managed to draw out the sadness in his eyes.

If he was the Queen’s-I assumed-most favoured cousin, what wa