Jewish Migration to South Africa: Passenger Lists from the UK. Two large-format volumes, edited by Saul Issroff. Volume 1: 1890 to 1905. £10; $16.50. Volume 2: 1906 to 1930. £10 ; $16.50. Ordering from http://www.kaplancentre.uct.ac.za/kaplan/publications/books

These two volumes offer extracts from passenger lists of “aliens”—non-British residents who are mostly (but not exclusively) Jewish. As Issroff explains in an introduction, the present South African Jewish community consists of people with Litvak ancestry who traveled to South Africa between 1881 and 1914. Many of these East Europeans passed through British ports en route to the southern tip of Africa.

“The journey to the arrival ports of Hull, Grimsby, or London usually took three to five days depending on where they had embarked,” Issroff writes. “From the point of entry they usually went to the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter in the east end of London where they awaited the next steamship to the Cape.”

Issroff is also editor of Jewish Migration to South Africa: The Records of the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter, 1885-1914, which may be used in conjunction with these volumes to help pinpoint ancestors’ journeys and potentially find clues about their birth dates, occupations, and family members.