Jewish Ancestors? A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in the United Kingdom. Published by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain; contributing editor Rosemary Wenzerul, 2006. Paperback, 144 pages.
Because my paternal grandfather and grandmother were born in London’s East End and Bristol, respectively, I began tracing my roots in Britain long before there was an Internet—or an information-packed book like Jewish Ancestors? A Guide to Jewish Genealogy—to assist in the hunt.
This handy guide provides a thorough survey of British resources, including a 30-page summary of resources in London and vicinity, and a valuable listing of resources by town in the rest of Britain.
The opening section on public records treats vital records, censuses from 1841 to 1901, wills, electoral registers, naturalizations, military records and a few other lesser-known resources such as passports (for what they’re worth, passport registers are available from 1795 to 1948). There’s even a solitary paragraph about Britain’s pathetic shipping records which contain the warning: “As these records are very bulky and lack an index, search time is lengthy and the resultant information is not always useful.”
The section on burial records contains an informative listing of London-area synagogues, indicating dates of use, opening hours, contact information, location and nearest tube station. A section on hospital records includes much advice on how to find them but no indication of what they might contain.
Like the rest of the book, the sections on the Mormon library and yizkor (memorial) books are geared for researchers doing research in Britain, not overseas. By its nature, however, the section on computers and the Internet is more universal in scope—obviously because the Internet can be accessed anywhere. It’s great to see the proliferation of UK-research-related websites listed in one place, offline. The information seems quite current. I noticed only one striking omission: The Jewish Chronicle’s wonderful searchable Internet database, which came online in 2006, was evidently too new to be mentioned.
Many will find the book particularly valuable because of its list of regional resources outside of the London area, information that is often considered too localized for the general-interest reader. For the town of Bristol, for example, where my grandmother and about a dozen of her siblings were born between 1884 and 1900, the book gives a thumbnail sketch of the Jewish presence, addresses, contact information and details on Bristol’s synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and the Bristol Record Office. The bibliography names two relevant books on the town. (Anthony Joseph’s chapter on England and Wales in the Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy offers more background history but nowhere near this level of richness on local resources.)
One thing the guide lacks, however, is the spice of romance. Although crammed with useful information, it could have been a little less dry and a little more visually exciting. Otherwise, this latest in a series of uniform editions on various topics from the JGSGB is a very commendable compilation indeed.
Bill Gladstone
