Introducing

Click on the logo above to access Shul Records America!

Shul Records America is a new finding aid directing you to
1217 American synagogue record collections housed in 124 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!

1. To identify where American synagogue records are located both online and offline, and grow this finding aid!

2. Inspire individuals, Jewish Genealogy Societies, and congregations to create indexing projects from these records for placement on JewishGen.

3. 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.

123 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 2/3/2025.