Collect

COLLECTING DATA, DOCUMENTS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND STORIES

The key to constructing your family tree is research... Thankfully today much of this can be done on the Internet. Previously family historians had to travel to and manually scour archives and microfiche indexes. Today we can plug our information into countless databases and hopefully bring up record matches in all sorts of wonderful places. It really is a great time to be a genealogist! This doesn’t mean it’s an easy undertaking. One still has to search for, find and verify information from databases with millions of entries. Doing things systematically and recording information accurately means you’re less likely to wander down dead ends, but it can still happen!

The AJGS Library has excellent resources available for researchers. The library is accessible during our regular workshops.

If you're new to genealogical research or if you think you may have a Jewish ancestor but you're not sure where to start researching visit the GETTING STARTED page for tips, tricks and traps to avoid!

MAJOR RESEARCH AREAS

Like every other migrant community Jews came to Australia from all over the world. The majority came from Europe but there are also those who from Egypt, China, India, pretty much everywhere! The Jewish communities of Europe were decimated by the events of the Holocaust and WW2 and many communal records were destroyed. Thankfully organizations like the Mormon (LDS) Church had begun collating, recording and indexing these records long before the war. Civil administrations in many jurisdictions also required copies of some records to be lodged in municipal centres. The development of the Internet has now allowed many of these records and indexes to be made available online. As well, archives around the world have embarked in the Herculean challenge of digitizing millions of records in their holdings before the paper copies crumble to dust.

Click on the links below to access information, links and resources pertaining to specific subject areas.

Australian resources and databases including National and state based archives, vital records, convict records, immigration resources and lots more.

The rest of the world including Europe, the UK, the US, Canada, China, South Africa and more.

Non geographical resources relating to topics such as The Holocaust, Genetic Genealogy and multinational services.