Introduction

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Jewish Genealogy Resources

Resources for Studying the Holocaust

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A Fact Sheet Compiled by YIVO Librarians & Archivists Jewish Genealogy Resources Some General Tips How Can YIVO Help You? YIVO Archives & Library Hours and Research Rules

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Jewish Genealogy Resources

Are you just beginning your genealogical quest? If so, we'd like to recommend the following resources for researching your family history:

• From Generation to Generation, by Arthur Kurzweil (revised edition, Harper Collins, 1993) provides an excellent guide to Jewish family history research.

• The Center Genealogical Institute (CGI) at the Center for Jewish History provides reference and educational services to family history researchers. It helps guide genealogical researchers through the library and archival collections of the Center's partners: YIVO, the Leo Baeck Institute, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the American Sephardic Federation.

• Consult the experts at the Jewish Genealogical Society. They can put you in touch with local Jewish genealogy societies and professional freelance genealogists.

• The National Archives (Washington, D.C. and regional branches) has a free orientation packet for records in its possession, e.g.: census, ship passenger lists, passport applications, military records, court records, and maps.

• Vital records in the United States are kept by state and local governments.

• Vital records for many Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe have been microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah (part of the Family History Library of the Church of Latter-day Saints), 35 NW Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. They sponsor an online Family Search Internet Genealogy Service. Most often, though, vital records for European Jewish communities are available only in the countries where the towns are currently located. Two guides by Miriam Weiner, Jewish Roots in Poland: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories (The Routes to Roots Foundation/YIVO, 1997) and Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories (The Routes to Roots Foundation/YIVO, 1999), provide useful information on East European resources for researching family history. Both can be purchased from the Routes to Roots Foundation.

• The New York Public Library (42nd Street & 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10018), and its various branches has borough directories, census records for the metropolitan area, back issues of The New York Times, maps, atlases, gazetteers, community histories, memorial books (yizker-bikher), indexes to the U.S. Federal Census, vital records for New York City, and ship passenger lists.

• For other New York area resources, consult Genealogical Resources in the New York Metropolitan Area (Jewish Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 6398, New York, NY 10128, (212) 330-8257).

Some General Tips

Genealogy begins at home. Before you visit a library or archives, interview as many relatives (particularly older relatives) as you can. Don't forget to ask them for:

• Family names, including any variant spellings.

• The towns they came from, the countries to which these towns belong now, as well as the countries to which they belonged when your relatives emigrated. Pay close attention to the spelling and pronunciation of these place names!

• Approximate dates of arrival in America and the cities and towns in which they settled.

• Names and towns of residence of all relatives remaining in Europe, including those who perished in the Holocaust.

How Can YIVO Help You?

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is the preeminent repository of library and archival materials on the history and culture of East European Jewry and their descendants in the United States and elsewhere. As we are not always able to provide individual responses to the many genealogical inquiries that we receive, we would like to pass along a few pointers to assist you in your research.

If you are able to pay us a visit, this is what we can offer you:

• The YIVO Library has quite a bit of information regarding specific cities and towns in Eastern Europe, including encyclopedias, gazetteers, and over 600 memorial books (yizker-bikher).

• The Library also has reference books on the history and geographical distribution of Jewish family names.

• The Library owns many biographical directories and lexicons. These will be helpful if your ancestor was fairly well known. Other basic genealogical reference books, bibliographies, and newsletters may also be consulted in the YIVO Library.

• The YIVO Library and Archives have extensive Holocaust-related holdings. (See also separate page on Resources for Studying the Holocaust.)

• The Archives has a collection of thousands of Eastern European photographs on a videodisc, indexed by town and searchable on a computer.

• The Archives holds the records of hundreds of landsmanshaftn (Jewish immigrant mutual aid societies based on towns of origin). Ask for the printed guide published by YIVO. (A Guide to YIVO's Landsmanshaftn Archive can also be purchased at the Jewish Book Center of the Workmen’s Circle, 45 East 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016, (212) 889-6800 or 1-800-922-2558.)

• YIVO can help put your family history into the larger context of Jewish history. We can direct you to sources for specific time periods, which can help you to understand how your family fits into the larger historical picture.

Please visit the Center for Jewish History web page on Family History Research for more information about doing genealogical research in the collections of YIVO and of the other Center partner organizations.

YIVO Archives & Library Hours and Research Rules

The Archives and Library function as two separate departments. The Library holds books, periodicals, and newspapers; while the Archives holds manuscripts, private papers, organizational files, photographs, films, posters, and sound recordings. For more extensive information about the Library, click here. To further explore the resources of the YIVO Archives, click here.

YIVO's Archives and Library share a reading room with the American Jewish Historical Society, the Leo Baeck Institute, and the American Sephardi Federation Archives at the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY, 10011-6301.

The Lillian Goldman Reading Room is open to researchers, Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (For a list of holiday closings, click here.) No appointment is necessary to consult library materials. For general archival research, however, it is strongly suggested that an appointment be arranged with an archivist by calling (212) 294-6143 or emailing Archives@yivo.cjh.org. An appointment is required to consult materials in special collections such as the Music Collections, Sound Archive, Photographic Archive, and Film Archive.

Many Archives and Library materials are not in English. YIVO's staff can guide your research but is not available to provide translation from Yiddish or other languages.

All materials (books, periodicals, microforms, manuscripts, photographs, etc.) must be consulted at the Center and may not be borrowed. There is no charge for consulting library and archival materials. Photocopy services are available, though some restrictions apply. (Click here for more information and for a price list.)

CAPTION FOR IMAGE AT TOP OF PAGE:
106-year-old Sholem Glotzer (front row, center) with several generations of his family, Ivanik, Poland, 1921. (Territorial Photographic Collection—Poland)