Recently, a middle-aged woman came into the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room of the Library of Congress seeking to locate her father, whom she had never seen. A search through the city directories and telephone books of Greater New York City was unproductive. As one of the reference specialists recounted, we found him in the Social Security Death Index, with date and place of death. Based on those facts, the researcher contacted a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn and located the burial site. A search of the cemetery files revealed the names of the woman’s father, his wife and their children, the latter being the woman’s half siblings. She contacted those siblings, all of whom lived in Florida, and organized a family reunion. At long last the woman was united with family she had never known. Such experiences in the Library of Congress are possible as researchers find their ancestors with the help of the reference staff, and then construct the historical context of the era in which they lived.
The Library of Congress has one of the world’s premier collections of U.S. and foreign genealogical and local history publications. The Library genealogy collection was begun as early as 1815 when it purchased President Thomas Jefferson’s library. The collections are especially strong in North American, British, Irish, French, German, and Scandinavian sources, although many areas of the world are represented.
Significant related material is found in biographies, city directories, folklore, maps, and published histories. The Library has large collections of manuscripts, maps and atlases, microforms, newspapers, rare books, prints and photographs, music, and digital collections housed in various custodial divisions of the Library.
The Library website offers access to digital collections and exhibits, such as From Haven to Home, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/. This site presents a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America, available to researchers online without (or prior to) making a trip to Washington, DC. The purpose of this article, however, is to highlight the services and collections that are uniquely available at the Library for those who are pursuing Jewish roots.
Using the Library
The Library of Congress is open to researchers over age 16 with a Library reader identification card that can be obtained easily with photo identification such as a driver’s license or passport. In preparing to do research at the Library, a few key points will increase the chances for a successful experience.
- Before arrival, search the Library’s website, http://www.loc.gov, and the Online Catalog, http://catalog.loc.gov, for books and materials of interest. This will help you determine which Library collections are accessible from remote locations and those that can be made available only within the Library of Congress.
- Define the research aims. With limited time in the world’s largest library, well-defined research questions will help avoid tangential wanderings.
- Involve the Library’s experienced reference staff in your search. Researchers who do not ask for guidance and suggestions from the reference librarians may never know what they missed.
Reading Rooms
The Library has divided its collections by geography, language, and special format in more than 20 reading rooms where researchers may gain access to the Library’s books, periodicals, and special collections. Specific research may require visits to several reading rooms. For example, one may request books and journals in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino in the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room. For books about Jews in other languages, go to the Main Reading Room. Recordings of Jewish music are found in the Recorded Sound Reading Room, and photographs of synagogues, etc., may be obtained in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room. Except for the reference collections in the reading rooms, researchers must seek Library collections from closed stacks with materials delivered to the reading room. Skilled reference librarians are on hand to help you find and retrieve collections.
Local History and Genealogy Reading Room. Where does one start? The Local History and Genealogy Reading Room is the gateway into the Library’s general collections of more than 60,000 genealogies and 100,000 U.S. local histories, and the reference staff is available to answer questions about genealogy and U.S. local history, biography, naval and maritime history, and American history. The room has a 6,000-title reference collection that may help give some answers. One man from New Mexico visited the reading room and was curious about why his family graveyard, dating to the 16th century, had tombstones with stars of David rather than crosses. As it turned out, he found significant information about the secret Jews of New Mexico in some reference books.
Microform Reading Room. The Microform Reading Room holds the Library’s collection of U.S. city directories. This non-circulating self-service collection is inventoried on the reading room’s website and is helpful in identifying ancestors for those years between the decennial censuses. Other microform treasures include Vsia Rossiia (Microfilm 24185), the five-reel directory of Jews living in czarist Russia.
Geography and Map Reading Room. The Geography and Map Room has a strong international collection of materials that can help researchers find geographic locations, particularly in Eastern Europe where many place names and political boundaries over the years. This reading room’s collection of gazetteers and atlases may help find the places of origin of families who emigrated to America in the late 19th or early 20th century. Certain U.S. county atlases, dating from 1825, show land ownership; some 1,500 county land ownership maps date from the 19th century; and ward maps are essential in obtaining ward numbers needed to search the census in major cities. U.S. Geological Survey Topographical Quadrangles from the 1880s are helpful in locating cemeteries, as well as boundary lines described on plats and deeds. Sanborn fire insurance maps, from 1867 to the present, indicate the size, shape, and construction of dwellings in 12,000 cities and towns.
Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. The Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room has a large collection of U.S. and foreign newspapers in Western languages. The reference collection has a number of indexes to newspapers, some of which abstract marriage and death notices, obituaries, and other data of genealogical interest from a variety of local papers.
Manuscript Reading Room. Almost all collections of personal papers in the Manuscript Reading Room contain some family data. Microfilms of the Hamburg ship passenger lists name people who embarked from Hamburg during 1850–73.
African and Middle Eastern Reading Room. The African and Middle Eastern Reading Room provides access to the Hebraic Section’s collection that includes many Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino-language newspapers in microform, both U.S. and foreign. (Some researchers hope to find obituaries in Forward/Forverts or other Yiddish newspapers, but there has never been an obituary page in the hundred-year history of these papers.) For the researcher seeking to find a copy of the play written by his grandfather or grandmother, there is a collection of 1,300 Yiddish plays in the custody of the Hebraic Section complete with an online guide, http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/marwick/marwickbibliography.pdf.
European Reading Room. Researchers pursuing their roots in Eastern Europe will find the collections and language ability of staff members helpful. For those with Sephardic ancestors from the Iberian Peninsula, the Hispanic Reading Room staff will give specialized guidance.
Performing Arts Reading Room. To help researchers better understand the time and culture in which their ancestors lived, or perhaps find a song composed or sung by a family member, the Performing Arts Reading Room has a collection of more than 4,000 popular American Yiddish songs. These may be searched by consulting the Irene Heskes Collection, 1895–1951, (Yiddish American Popular Songs).
Electronic Resources
The Library’s collection of printed material is complemented by subscription databases. These include many titles that may also be available in large public or university libraries. Examples include ProQuest (Ancestry Library Edition, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, and HeritageQuest Online). The Library also subscribes to many specialized databases such as Otzar HaHochma, which provides full-text access to more than 42,000 Hebrew language books. Other resources that may prove useful include: Index to Jewish Periodicals; Compact Memory: Internetarchiv jüdischer Periodika, a digital collection of some important German-language Jewish periodicals of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries; and Encyclopaedia Judaica. Subscription databases are accessible only on the Library campus. Reference librarians are always available to help the researchers navigate the many databases.
Before coming to the Library, browse the millions of digital collections on the Internet that are available in American Memory, http://memory.loc.gov. These free and open files include books, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music. Just typing the word Jewish in the search box brings up a photo of the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans, 1909; photographs of the Woodbine Brotherhood Synagogue in Cape May, New Jersey; and the Jewish Cemetery in Sonora, Tuolumne, California; 77 Yiddish- language plays that have been digitized from the Library’s Marwick collection; and Harris Newmark’s book, Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853–1913.
Key Websites
Before you Visit: http://www.loc.gov/rr/
Library Hours: http://www.loc.gov/rr/hours.html
Conclusion
While the Library is rich in collections of manuscripts, microfilms, newspapers, photographs, maps, and published and digital material, it is not an archive or repository for unpublished or primary source county and state records. Researchers seeking county records will need to visit the courthouse or a library in the county of interest, the state archive, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or one of its Family History Centers, all of which might hold either the original county records or microform copies. Libraries, archives, and genealogical and historical societies at the national, state, and local levels are all vital resources to use in the complex puzzle of genealogical research.
James Sweany is head of the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room, Library of Congress. Dr. Peggy Pearlstein is head of the Library’s Hebraic Section.
