Introducing
Click on the logo above to access Shul Records America!
Shul Records America is a new finding aid directing you to
1158 American synagogue record collections housed in 122 repositories or websites.
This list will grow as additional repositories are added!
What are synagogue records?
Synagogue records are the records created by congregations, their staff including rabbis and administrators, other ritual leaders such as mohels, educators, and board members.
The records that are preserved can contain a broad variety of materials including some that are of more value to community historians than family historians, but the real gems to genealogists include birth, marriage, and death registers, mohel or circumcision lists, ketubot, burials, and yahrzeit memorial plaques.
Additionally, there are other types of synagogue materials that may be helpful such as membership lists, congregational bulletins, board meeting minutes, donor lists, bar or bat mitzvot lists, photographs, eulogies, and more.
Where are synagogue records found?
At an active synagogue.
You can research where defunct or historical congregational records may have been deposited in an archive by searching for the congregational name, rabbi, or mohel on WorldCat, ArchiveGrid, or Google possibly finding the location of preserved material hidden away at hundreds of small historical societies, museums, archives, or within commercial genealogy company catalogs.
The reality is that the archival world does not catalog all collections with the same terminology or use the same transcriptions from foreign languages. There are also boxes at archives that are not described in finding aids and never make their way to WorldCat, Archivegrid, or Google, so when searching with a phrase such as "synagogue records" a collection that is simply catalogued as a "congregation register" or "rabbinical papers" or not described at all, may not point you to where the records exist and are housed.
There are also many errors in catalogs, and the only way to verify contents is to see the records in person or by digitizing them for broader access.
To make it easier and in one place, we've partnered with the American Jewish Archives, the Center for Jewish History, Yeshiva University, and The Jewish Theological Seminary to start the search for you with a Shul Records America finding aid that points you in the right direction to get started. We've also added hidden online gems from FamilySearch and elsewhere.
Details:
As for languages, most are in English, but there are also Hebrew, German, and Yiddish collections.
Most of the collections listed are not digitized. When they are, there is a hyperlink. These are the easiest projects to tackle indexing first.
Some collections are duplicated and housed in more than one repository.
Others are split up with portions of records in different repositories.
If you find errors, which we know there will be, please contact us with corrections to keep this list as useful to everyone as possible.
If you know of U.S. synagogue records housed in repositories not included here yet, please tell us, so we can add them.
Know that some of the yahrzeit and burial type records found listed in Shul Records America are already indexed, but many are not. We work together with JewishGen’s Memorial Plaques Indexing Project and the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR).
We need you!
To identify where American synagogue records are located both online and offline, and grow this finding aid!
Inspire individuals, Jewish Genealogy Societies, and congregations to create indexing projects from these records for placement on JewishGen.
If you don’t find a congregation you are interested in listed in SRA, perhaps you could motivate an active congregation to collect and share their records with archives such as AJA, JTS, and YU.
122 repositories included to date are as follows but check back as others are added:
Agudath Israel of America Orthodox Jewish Archives
AJHSQ
Alabama Department Archives & History
American Jewish Archives
American Jewish Historical Society
American Sephardi Federation
Ancestry
at synagogue
Atlanta History Center
Auburn University
Ball State University
Birmingham Public Library
Book
Boulder Carnegie Library
Brandeis University
Bremen Museum
Bronx County Historical Society
Buffalo & Erie County Public Library
Buffalo History Museum
Burlington County Historical Society
Butte-Silver Bow Archives
Capital Jewish Museum
Center for Brooklyn History
Center for Michigan Jewish Heritage
Central Archive History of Jewish People (Israel)
Central Illinois Jewish Communities Archives (CIJCA)
Chester County Historical Society
College of Charleston
College of William and Mary
Cornell University Library
Dallas Jewish Historical Society
Dallas Public Library
Denver Public Library
Duke University Library
Eastern Washington State Historical Society
FamilySearch (mostly AJA and Magnes)
Gardiner Public Library
Georgia Archives
Georgia Historical Society
Harvard University
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Indiana Jewish Historical Society
Jewish Atlantic World
Jewish Community Archive of Greater Kansas City
Jewish Historical Society MetroWest
Jewish Historical Society of Central Jersey
Jewish Historical Society of Delaware
Jewish Historical Society of Long Island
Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey
Jewish Museum Milwaukee
Jewish Museum of Maryland
Jewish Theological Seminary
JewishData.com
JewishGen USA Database
Jews of Marion Indiana
Johns Hopkins University
Kansas Historical Society
Leo Baeck Institute
Library of Congress NUCMC
Maine Historical Society
Memphis Public Libraries
Montana Historical Society
Museum Southern Jewish Experience
National Library of Israel
New Haven Museum and Historical Society Library
New Mexico State Archives
New York Public Library
New York State Historical Documents
New York University
Northern Illinois University
Ohio History Collection
Philadelphia Congregations Early Records Project
Rauh Jewish Archives
Rice University
Rutgers University
San Diego History Center
San Diego State University
Sharlot Hall Museum Library & Archives
St. Louis Genealogical Society
Stanford University
State Historical Society of Missouri
State University of New York at Buffalo
Temple University
Texas Tech University SW
Tulane University
UCLA Western States Jewish Hist Archive
University of Alabama
University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Arizona SW Jewish Archives
University of California Berkeley Magnes Bancroft
University of Denver
University of Florida
University of Iowa
University of Kentucky
University of Louisiana Lafayette
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
University of Minnesota Upper Midwest Jewish Archives
University of Mississippi
University of Nevada Las Vegas Library
University of North Carolina Asheville
University of North Carolina Greensboro
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester Special Collections
University of South Alabama
University of South Carolina
University of Texas Austin
University of Utah
University of Washington Jewish Archives
University Southern California
University Southern California One Natl Gay Lesbian Archives
Vermont Historical Society
Wayne State University
Western Reserve Historical Society
Whitman College and Northwest Archives
Wisconsin Historical Society Library Archives
Worcester Historical Museum
Wyner Jewish Heritage Center
Yale University
Yeshiva University
YIVO
Shul Records America is compiled by Ellen Kowitt, Director, JewishGen USA Research Division.
This material is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced or published elsewhere without permission.
SRA is a work-in-progress with ongoing corrections and additions. Last updated 11/3/2024.