Researching Jewish Genealogy in South Africa
An excellent article by Roy Ogus and Saul Issroff, published in Roots-Key, the journal of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Los Angeles, Spring 2008.
http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/Roots-Key=Researching_South_African_Jewish_Genealogy.pdf
Dr Issroff also recommended the following link:
A major database of SA Jews is SAJewish Rootsweb: http://chrysalis.its.uct.ac.za/CGI/cgi_RootWeb.exe
These can be purchased from the Kaplan Centre for Hebrew and Jewish studies, UCT <[email protected]>
RESEARCHING JEWISH GENEALOGY
Beginning point for a micro view would be an Internet search for “Jews of [town name].” Online today we can find memorial pages for many of the towns and cities throughout central and eastern Europe.
At the website of JewishGen.org, you will also find databases for 19th-century vital records of many towns and cities in that ancestral region, as well as yizkor books — 20th-century histories written to memorialize specific communities and the families who were destroyed. Since 1994, volunteers of JewishGen have labored to translate these volumes into English, and the project continues. When you search this database for a place or family name, also identify the underlying sources, so that you can seek further information in those sources.
Additionally, the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem offers other microlevel materials. At its website, you might start with its Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, which offers many memorial pages of testimony by those who survived or those who submitted information about family members. Also valuable for understanding the microissues involved is the American journal for Jewish genealogy, Avotaynu.
Less accessible for American research, but immensely valuable are the holdings of the Leopold Muller Memorial Library at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Among much else, you’ll find one of Europe’s largest collections of yizkor books — over 800 volumes.
Beginning point for a micro view would be an Internet search for “Jews of [town name].” Online today we can find memorial pages for many of the towns and cities throughout central and eastern Europe.
At the website of JewishGen.org, you will also find databases for 19th-century vital records of many towns and cities in that ancestral region, as well as yizkor books — 20th-century histories written to memorialize specific communities and the families who were destroyed. Since 1994, volunteers of JewishGen have labored to translate these volumes into English, and the project continues. When you search this database for a place or family name, also identify the underlying sources, so that you can seek further information in those sources.
Additionally, the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem offers other microlevel materials. At its website, you might start with its Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, which offers many memorial pages of testimony by those who survived or those who submitted information about family members. Also valuable for understanding the microissues involved is the American journal for Jewish genealogy, Avotaynu.
Less accessible for American research, but immensely valuable are the holdings of the Leopold Muller Memorial Library at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Among much else, you’ll find one of Europe’s largest collections of yizkor books — over 800 volumes.