Click on the logo above to access Shul Records America!

Shul Records America is a unique finding aid directing you to
1,515 North American and Caribbean synagogue record collections
with genealogical value from 180 sources.
This list will grow as additional collections are identified! Can you help?

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/ketubot, and death registers, mohel or circumcision lists, eulogies, burials, and yahrzeit memorial plaques.

• Other types of synagogue materials that may be helpful are membership lists, congregational bulletins, board meeting minutes, donor lists, bar or bat mitzvah lists, photographs, conversions, 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 started the search for you with Shul Records America, a finding aid that points you in the right direction. 

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, 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 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 North 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.

180 sources are included to date, but check back as others are added:

Agudath Israel of America Orthodox Jewish Archives

AJHSQ

Alabama Department Archives & History

Allen County Public Library

American Jewish Archives

American Jewish Historical Society

American Sephardi Federation

Ancestry

Arkansas State Archive

Atlanta History Center

Auburn University

Ball State University

Birmingham Public Library

B'nai Israel Cong. (Rockville, MD)

B'nai Jacob (Middletown, PA) 

Boston University

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 Arkansas Libraries - LeMaster Collection

Central Illinois Jewish Communities Archives (CIJCA)

Central Synagogue (Manhattan)

Chester County Historical Society

College of Charleston

College of William and Mary

Cong. Aaron (Trinidad, CO)

Cong. Achduth Vesholom / B'nai Jacob (Fort Wayne, IN)

Cong. Ahavath Chesed (Jacksonville, FL)

Cong. Beth Ahabah (Richmond, VA)

Cong. Beth El (Bloomfield Hills, MI)

Cong. Beth Israel (West Hartford, CT)

Cong. Emanu-El (Manhattan, NY)

Cong. Kneseth Israel (Elkins Park, PA)

Cong. Mikveh Israel (Philadelphia, PA)

Cong. Shaar Hashomayim Archives (Montreal)

Cong. Shearith Israel (Manhattan)

Cornell University Library

Dallas Jewish Historical Society

Dallas Public Library

Denver Public Library

Duke University Library

Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives

Eastern Washington State Historical Society

Eldridge Street Synagogue (Manhattan, NY)

FamilySearch (mostly AJA and Magnes)

FindAGrave

Fort Worth Jewish Archives (Fort Worth, TX)

Gardiner Public Library

Georgia Archives

Georgia Historical Society

Harvard University

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

IA GenWeb

Indiana Jewish Historical Society

Jewish Atlantic World

Jewish Community Archives of Greater Kansas City

Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada

Jewish Historical Society MetroWest

Jewish Historical Society of Central Jersey

Jewish Historical Society of Delaware

Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford

Jewish Historical Society of Long Island

Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey

Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia

Jewish Museum Milwaukee

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Jewish Public Library Archives - Montreal

Jewish Theological Seminary

JewishData.com

JewishGen USA Database

Jews of Marion Indiana

Johns Hopkins University

Kane Street Synagogue (Brooklyn, NY)

Kansas Historical Society

Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue (Manhattan, NY)

LancasterHistory.org

Leo Baeck Institute

Library of Congress NUCMC

Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim (Wynnewood, PA)

Maine Historical Society

Memphis Public Libraries

Montana Historical Society

Museum Southern Jewish Experience

Musser Public Library

Nashville Jewish Archives

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

Newport Historical Society

Northern Illinois University

Ohef Sholom Temple (Norfolk, VA)

Ohio History Collection

Oklahoma Historical Society

Ottawa Jewish Archives

Philadelphia Congregations Early Records Project

Portraits Etched in Stone book by David de Sola Pool

Rauh Jewish Archives

Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association

Rice University

Riverlands Jewish Archive

Rutgers University

Saint John Jewish Historical Museum

San Diego History Center

San Diego State University

Shaarai Shomayim (Lancaster, PA)

Sharlot Hall Museum Library & Archives

Spertus Institute Asher Library

St. Louis Genealogical Society

Stanford University

State Historical Society of Missouri

State University of New York at Buffalo

Temple University

Temple Adath Joseph (Saint Joseph, MO)

Temple B'nai Israel / Sons of Israel (Laconia, NH)

Temple B'nai Israel (Little Rock, AR)

Temple Emanuel (Greensboro, NC)

Temple Emanu-El (Dallas, TX)

Temple Emanu-El (San Francisco)

Temple Israel / Kehillah Kedosha Adas Israel (Boston, MA)

Temple Israel (Leadville, CO)

Temple Shalom (Newton, MA)

Temple Sinai (Oakland, CA)

Temple Sinai (Washington, DC)

Temple Tifereth Israel (Beachwood, OH)

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 JDOC

University of Florida Smathers Library

University of Iowa

University of Kentucky

University of Louisiana Lafayette

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

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 Southern California

University Southern California One Natl Gay Lesbian Archives

University of Texas Austin

University of Utah

University of Vermont Burlington

University of Washington Jewish Archives

Vermont Historical Society

Wayne State University

Western Reserve Historical Society

Whitman College and Northwest Archives

Wisconsin Historical Society Library Archives

with congregant

Worcester Historical Museum

Wyner Jewish Heritage Center

Yale University

Yeshiva University

YIVO

Young Israel Beth-El Borough Park (Brooklyn, NY)

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 10/31/2025.