The Jewish Guide to the Internet

Avotaynu is the leading publisher of material relating to Jewish genealogy and Jewish family history. This includes the journal, Avotaynu, books and microfiche. An index to the last 14 years of the journal, dating back to 1985, is available. In addition, Avotaynu offers books, maps and video tapes published by other companies and provides a free biweekly email newsletter. Of particular interest is the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index (CJSI), a searchable gateway to information about more than 230,000 Jewish surnames that appear in more than 28 different databases. These databases, combined, include more than 1,000,000 entries.

Subtitled The Internet Review of Jewish Genealogy and Family History, this site has sections on conferences, DNA studies, indexing projects, online trees, and surnames for doing family research.

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This searchable database contains headstone inscriptions from Jewish cemeteries throughout the UK. You can find headstone inscriptions, including Hebrew transliterations (where possible) and mini family trees for each individual.

“The Cercle de Genealogie Juive (CGJ) is the first Jewish Genealogical Society in France. Founded in 1984, the CGJ has almost 600 members. The CGJ belongs to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) and to the Fédération Française de Généalogie (FFG). “

Created by Philip Trauring, this site provides lists of resources by country. Some countries have been divided into sub-regions when necessary. For Country and Province topics there are currently 9 potential sections of resources: History, Genealogy, Cemeteries, Holocaust, Diaspora, Contemporary, Military, Newspapers and Books.

This site from The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland provides a browsable and searchable database of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland. The foundation also has a map of a Chassidic route, a tourist route following traces of Jewish communities through southeastern Poland.

This site, in English, Dutch and Hebrew, and under the auspices of the Akevoth Foundation, seeks to “to collect, research and to save relevant data in order to publish the history of the Dutch-Jewish families and their heritage.” The collection contains Portuguese/ Spanish as well as Ashkenazi data.

This searchable database contains genealogical data of more than 66,000 persons related to Dutch Jewish families, which are collected by Bertha and Max van Dam. The database contains over 30 separate family trees, most of whom were living in the Netherlands before 1800. The site is in English, Dutch, German and French.

Full text of First American Jewish Families 1644-1988 by Malcolm Stern whose genealogies and bibliography can be searched as well.

“GenealogyIndexer.org is a free website for searching 2 million+ pages of historical European directories
(business, address, telephone), yizkor books, Galician secondary school reports, Polish and Russian military
documents, community histories, and more. Containing tens of millions of personal names — often with towns, street addresses, and occupations, and sometimes with genealogical details such as patronymics, maiden names, or vital dates — most of the 4,000+ sources are not searchable elsewhere.”

Search this database of the family trees of over five million individuals.

This site provides information on how to search for family history in places such as Genova, Livorno, Rome, Sienna, and Venice.

Based in Southern California, this company distributes new and used books and reproduction maps of interest to those researching Jewish genealogy.

“Gesher Galicia is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that promotes and conducts Jewish genealogical and historical research for Galicia, a province of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is today part of eastern Poland and southwestern Ukraine. Our major research initiative — The Galician Archival Records Project — is acquiring and indexing a variety of metrical, property, school, voter, tax and magnate records for Galicia.

Portal of links to sites of interest to those studying Jewish genealogy.

Free access to Holocaust records from the Arolsen Archives Collection and the USC Shoah Foundation.

Information about the goals and members of this international group devoted to the furtherance of Jewish genealogical research. The site provides access to a variety of useful resources including a bibliography of North American Jewish Community Books and its international Jewish cemetery project.

The Irish Jewish Family History Database has been compiled by Stuart Rosenblatt P.C. FGSI. and contains information on over 44,000 individuals who lived in Ireland between 1700 and the present day.

The largest database of Jewish vital and other records online dealing with the history of the Jews in Poland. The site features a town explorer and a project explorer, as well as a knowledge base.

The goal of this group is to catalog Jamaica's Jewish cemeteries. At least fourteen burial grounds remain in tact while close to twenty more are known but without extant grave markers. The site provides access to a database of the cemeteries and graves.

This project from JewishGen provides information about Jewish cemeteries around the world. You can drill down by geographic region.

This database of Jewish cemeteries in Poland can be searched by last name or browsed by town. The information often includes pictures of the graves as well.

From Tel Aviv University comes this database of over 61,022 Jewish tombstones spread across Turkey. There is information about the Jews in Turkey and photographs of the graves and cemeteries. You can also search the database through a variety of parameters.

The site describes the services of the organization and provides access to information about the cemeteries that belong to it.

This commercial database focuses on Jewish history and
genealogy. In the database are
the complete records from many Jewish cemeteries from around the world. The database
also houses thousands of Immigration Declaration of Intention
documents from several states, and a number of hard-to find books.

This Spanish language site provides digital access to documentation regarding the Mexican Jewish community and immigration to Mexico. Its four sections, a Digital Library, Migration Records, Demographic History, and Genealogy, include digitized photographs, videos, oral history recordings, music, statistics, and, notably, over 11,000 immigration cards.

Created by Ancestry.com, this site offers free searching of the numerous databases of JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

From this page you can learn about the activities, seminars, and membership benefits of this organization. Access is provided to selected current and back issues of the quarterly journal Shemot. Of particular note are the searchable library catalog, the family finder index, and the extensive set of links and information sources. You can search by surname or town. This is an excellent starting point for genealogical research, especially for material related to Great Britain.

This site in Swedish and English provides resources for those seeking information about family histories in Sweden.

Stephen Wood provides an faq and a number of links to family web sites and genealogical societies and discussion groups.

n addition to information about this historical society in Ohio, the site also has searchable databases of obituaries from the Cleveland Jewish News and the Cleveland Independent as well as cemetery lists.

This site, which is largely in Dutch, is devoted to the digitizing of the gravestones in all of the Ashkenazi cemeteries in Holland.

This searchable database of indexes to Jewish records of Poland and may include records from Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus.There is also an alphabetical list of the towns and villages covered.

JewishGen is the primary internet source connecting researchers of Jewish genealogy worldwide. Its most popular components are the JewishGen Discussion Group, the JewishGen Family Finder (a database of over 150,000 surnames and towns), the comprehensive directory of InfoFiles, ShtetLinks for over 200 communities, and a variety of databases such as the ShtetlSeeker and Jewish Records Indexing-Poland. JewishGens online Family Tree of the Jewish People contains data on over one million people." Its searchable database is divided into sections on learning, researching, discussion groups, projects, fund raising, hosted organizations, and general information.

"This site contains the genealogy of the major Sephardi families from the Ottoman Empire and beyond, a message board, a forum and documents submitted by members. The genealogy databases include all families that are related to them by marriage regardless of origins or religion. Each additional branch is listed with its own ancestors and descendants."

The Lo Tishkach Foundation European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative aims to guarantee the effective and lasting preservation and protection of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves throughout Europe. The searchable database now contains over 9,000 listings in some 29 European countries.

TheGenealogist has released online 99,500 records of London synagogue seat-holders spanning the years from 1920 to 1939. Covering the records from 18 Synagogues around London with many connected guilds, societies and charities etc. Additional information found in these records include names of gentlemen eligible for office, life member of the council, women who are seatholders in their own right and seatholders who are not eligible to vote. Fully searchable by name, keyword, synagogue and address, the Jewish Synagogue Seatholders has been extracted from various years of: "Seatholders for Synagogues in London”

The goals of this foundation, established in 1994, are to "survey, study, research, inventory and document Jewish material, archives and Judaica in Eastern European archives," with an eye particularly to those of genealogical interest. You can search this single online source for the combined archival holdings in Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine. Also are included are documents from civil registration offices in Poland (Urzad Stanu Cwyilnego offices) and civil registration offices in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova (ZAGS Offices); the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw, Poland); Pinkassim collection of the V. Vernadskyi Library (Kiev, Ukraine); Regional Museum (Ostrog, Ukraine) and the private collection of Rabbi Moishe Leib Kolesnik (Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine). This is a compendium of material that cannot be found elsewhere and is augmented with maps and extensive other genealogical information, a list of publications, and a set of relevant links.

“The New Haven Jewish Cemetery Database is an online, searchable database of thousands of graves in many of the cemeteries in New Haven and the surrounding area in Connecticut.”

Created by Genie Milgrom, this site provides links to sites particularly about Jews of Spanish and Dutch ancestry.

Maintained by Jeff Malka, this extensive collection of links includes sections on Sephardic Jewish websites, newslists, archival sources, books, and forums, as well as an area where you can search for Sephardic names. The site is divided by geographic area, and you can receive email updates when new material is added.

The Sephardic Heritage Project was founded by Sarina Roffé in 2004 to identify and preserve the marriage and brit milah records of the Syrian Jewish community. The project has now evolved to include finding and identifying records from Sephardic communities worldwide  for use in genealogical research.

This site by Harry Stein offers several sections of interest to those researching Sephardic Jewish genealogy including Sephardic names

“The primary aim of the project is to research the estimated 15,000 core families who migrated to Southern Africa between 1850-1950 from England, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus.”

Fully searchable databases of London Ashkenazi Synagogue and secular records, with the emphasis on pre-UK civil registration, meaning the bulk of the records contained in the databases are from between 1791 and 1860.

Formerly the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS)-New England Archive, the is s the only historical center dedicated to, and specializing in, New England Jewish history.. In addition to information about its programs and collections, it has more than 2 million records in its archives, and more than 600,000 searchable documents in its digital collections.

Written by genealogy journalist Schelly Talalay Dardashti conjunction with JTA, this is currently the only specifically Jewish genealogy blog. It coversnew resources, research, events, publications -- anything relevant to Jewish genealogy. Formerly the Jewish genealogy columnist for the Jerusalem Post, Schelly also writes for the Jerusalem Post, The Forward and other media outlets, teaches online Jewish genealogy. She offers online courses in Jewish genealogy at her second site at www.genclass.com.