Jewish Genealogy: From Individuals to Progressively Larger Groups

Traditionally, genealogy has focussed on the lineage of a single individual. “Family history” has extended the scope of genealogical study to the extended family. The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy at the Israel National Library has consciously attempted to widen the horizons to ever larger groups. There has been a planned progression beyond the single individual or family, through the community as a whole, to a segment of society at the regional level, and then on to a national Jewry in its entirety.

This trajectory can be easily illustrated by referencing some of the studies the Institute has sponsored. From a prosopograhic study of two leading Hungarian Jewish families, family reconstruction methods were employed to examine multidimensional structures in family relationships in Jewish community of Piotrków Trybunalski during the 19th Century. Genealogical sources were utilised to recreate the lives and lineages of village Jews who constituted a significant (though largely invisible) sector of all Jews residing in the Russian “Pale of Settlement”. Online sources were drawn upon to conduct a demographic and genealogical profile of Scottish Jewry since its emergence two centuries ago. And now the much more ambitious task of reconstructing the genealogies of diffuse groups of Conversos between the 15^th and 18^th centuries is being embarked upon.

These studies have required innovative research methods, a fresh look at traditional sources and, to an extent, the development of broader definitions of Jewish genealogy. These aspects will be discussed as background to the three illustrative presentations in this session.