About the Library

The Society’s Library contains more than a thousand reference books and other items including journals and manuscripts. It is unique in the UK in concentrating specifically on Jewish genealogy with the emphasis on resources to help those tracing Jewish ancestors.

The geographical coverage seeks to be worldwide with special emphasis on London and regional UK communities including Wales, Scotland and Ireland. We hold copies of synagogue registers such as the Great, New and Hambro synagogues in London, the Spanish and Portuguese congregation at Bevis Marks, also cemetery inscriptions, communal histories, and a major collection on Irish Jewry 1700-2016. Biographical material covers Jews in the armed services.

There is much on other parts of the world reflecting the diversity of Jewish settlement. Some books are specific to particular towns or areas such as records published by Jewish genealogical societies in The Netherlands and France. More general items include surname dictionaries e.g. Poland, Russia, Sephardi, gazetteers and maps, year books, and research guides.

Items relating to specific families are in the form of printed books and manuscript pedigrees. Much of the material has been privately published and not widely available elsewhere. Major collected works include The Jacobi Papers on leading Ashkenazi families (4 volumes), The Unbroken Chain by Neil Rosenstein (genealogies from 15th to 20th centuries), Genealogia Hebraica by Jose Maria Abecassis on Gibraltar families from 17th to 20th centuries (5 volumes).

Journals include complete sets of Avotaynu (the oldest and most comprehensive Jewish genealogical journal), Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, and our own award-winning journal Shemot.

The library is constantly added to by purchase and donation. We welcome gifts from members of any duplicate genealogical books or ones they no longer require.

We maintain a smaller library at our branch in Manchester available for consultation at their meetings.

The substantial collection of Holocaust memorial books relating to destroyed European communities, mainly in Hebrew and Yiddish, have been donated to the Wiener Holocaust Library, in London.

Search the JGSGB Catalogue Online                         Link to List of Family Trees                                   Back to Library Home Page