JEWISH GENEALOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN
©2008 by Donald R. Snow
Click to go to that section of the Notes
This page was last updated 2008-07-21.
Return to the London Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page.
INTRODUCTION
- Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R.
and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, London Family History Centre (snowd@math.byu.edu, dms34@juno.com)
- These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org under Class
Outlines, Don's Listings ,
and are linked on the London Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events. Many other class
notes for family history are linked on both sites also.
- There are many records available for Jewish ancestral research and
this talk will discuss some of them, with emphasis of
what the London Family History Centre has.
GETTING STARTED
FAMILYSEARCH
- FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG
- The
Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) -- keyword searches show the following:
- 4775 entries for "Jewish"
- 1737 entries for "Jews"
- 31 entries for "Jew"
- In 2001 the Family History Library
prepared an index for the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies meeting in Salt Lake City of most of the films
with Jewish content and it is published onhttp://www.jewishgen.org/databases/FHLC/
- KNOWLES COLLECTION
- SEARCHING FAMILYSEARCH WITH GOOGLE
- Use Google and enter "site:www.familysearch.org Jewish"
(without the quotes) or with "Jew" to find additional items on the website
besides those in the FHLC
- Many hits will be from Research Guidance - can eliminate
these by including '-"Research Guidance" ' in the Google
search
- FAMILYSEARCH-LINKED WEBSITES
- For a few websites related to Jewish genealogy,
in FamilySearch click on the Search Tab/Websites/Cultural and Religious
Groups/Jewish Records and Jewish History
JEWISH DATA AND HELPS
- JEWISHGEN -- http://www.jewishgen.org
- BRITISH JEWRY -- http://www.british-jewry.org.uk/
- Lots of good information -- see Site Map for an overview
- Includes births, marriages, and deaths in the UK
- Includes records from Synagogues (e.g. the Great Synagogue), cemeteries, and much more
- Can download pdf's of births, marriages, and deaths
- On marriage records when it says "daughter or son of Abraham" that means convert to
Judaism, not born Jewish
- UNITED SYNAGOGUE -- http://www.theus.org.uk/
- Extensive collection of Marriage Authorisations and other data
- JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN (JGSGB) -- http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/
- Extensive list of Family Trees, databases, list of
a few of the Jewish films at London
FHC
- Jewish Communities and Records in the UK -- more
than 100,000 names from more than 1000
Jewish congregations in the British Isles
- STEVE MORSE ONE-STEP SEARCH WEBSITE -- http://www.stevemorse.org/ -- one-step searches of
many records, mostly US records
- JEWISH DATA -- http://www.jewishdata.com/ -- available
for free at FHC's on http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/ -- see http://blog.worldvitalrecords.com/?p=448
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
- EMIGRATION TO THE US
- GERMANY AND EAST EUROPE GAZETTEERS AND MAPS --
http://www.progenealogists.com/germany/
- REVERSE ALPHABETICAL PLACE NAME INDEXES
- Roger P. Minert has published several for East
Euopean provinces of Jewish interest and London FHC has them, e.g.
East and West Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania
- "Reverse alphabetical" means the words are
alphabetized from the end of the word backwards
- Helps in finding places when you can
only read the last part of the word
- Search engines don't have the capability of
using wildcards at the start of the word (only at the end), but
you can do it when on an online list of locationswith the "Find
On This Page" feature of a browser
-
Example, e.g. find all East and West Prussia locations starting with S and containing "gen"
-- Go to http://www.progenealogists.com/germany/prussia/pru-s.htm
and use Edit/Find-On-This-Page "gen" -- shows
all entries with "gen" anywhere in the word
-
Problem with this method is that it requires you to be on
that page already
- SHEMOT (means "names" in Hebrew and name of Book of
Exodus in Bible) -- Journal of the JGSGB -- London FHC has hardcopies
for the past few years
- EUROPE GENEALOGY LINKS -- http://www.genealogylinks.net/europe/index.html --
portal to 50,000 websites, many with Jewish relationships
- AVOTAYNU -- http://www.avotaynu.com/index.htm and
NU WHAT'S NEW? http://www.avotaynu.com/nu.htm (free e-zine on Jewish
genealogy)
ASSIGNMENT
- Look at the pdf's of the booklets Tracing Your
Jewish Ancestry and Jewish Research Outline listed above and
download them, perhaps.
- Check the Knowles Collection for any of your British
ancestry surnames.
- Click on some of the websites listed under
Jewish Data and Helps above and look around.
Return to the London Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page.