The Knowles Collection has moved

In the summer of 2007, a new group of records appeared on the FamilySearch Community Trees Website. This database, The Knowles Collection, contained the records of a small section of  the Jewish people of the British Isles. That original set included less than 10,000 people.
Over the last eight or so years, I have been so lucky to have witnessed the incredible growth of the Knowles Collection. What was once a single database, has now grown to be six individual databases that now contain the genealogical records of almost 1.2 million Jewish people. Those databases and the number of people contained  in them;

                          The Jews of the British Isles  208,349   

                          The Jews of North America  489,400

                          The Jews of Europe  380,637

                          The Jews of South America and the Caribbean  21,351

                          The Jews of Africa, The Orient and the Middle East   37,618   

                          The Jews of the South Pacific    21,518     

While I have received many notes from those who have been able to find family names and in some cases link together with distant cousins, I have also heard from some who have had a hard time finding the collection. Well, hopefully that will no longer be an issue. This past week the Knowles Collection has moved to new location which should make finding it and searching the collection much easier. It is now located under the Genealogies tab on the front page of FamilySearch.org. The following steps should help in your search.

1. From the main page of FamilySearch.org, Click on the search tab which will give you a drop down box containing five areas. Select Genealogies. (BELOW)

                         

2. This will take you to the main search page. Once on this page you can search by entering the name you are looking for and at the bottom of the page selecting Community Trees (Below). 

3. The results that are returned include Hugh Charles Knowles, the son of Charles Julius Kino and his wife Louise Essinger (Below) . The family changed their name to Knowles before the birth of Hugh Charles.

4. By clicking on the name in blue, the complete record is given of Hugh Charles Knowles (Below). The area on the left of the page provides the basic information as well as a list of sources and notes for the record.  The center of the page is the individuals pedigree, which can be extended for more generations, or made to show the children. The top Yellow band gives the name of the collection the record came from, in this case it is the Knowles Collection, Jews of the British Isles.

I do believe that by moving the collection, far more people will be able to find their families. I am most grateful to all who have donated their own records to the collection.This databases will be updated as often as needed. I hope this continues to be a valuable resource for all those looking for their Jewish families.

New Brunswick Provincial Marriages 1789-1950

In March of last year, I wrote about the New Brunswick Death records that were made available on the FamilySearch website. Now this past week the New Brunswick Provincial Marriages, 1789-1950 have also been added to FamilySearch. The collection, which as of today includes over 255,000 images, provides some great information for people researching their Jewish families. Starting with a basic search page (shown below), I have entered the surname Cohen.

The name Cohen returned 586 entries, of which the first part of page 1 are shown below. 

I chose the second entry, the marriage of Israel Cohen to Freda Jacobson in 1903. Upon clicking on the name Israel Cohen, I was given the basic information for  this marriage (Below).

We now have most of the vital information on the bride and groom, including their ages and the names of their parents. Also, the number of the microfilm that was the source for this information is shown, #2,320,202. By following the View the document link the researcher can then view the original record (Below).

Australia, New South Wales, Cemetery, Military, and Church Record Transcripts, 1816-1982

This database, which is really a mixture of a few different types of records is now available at FamilySearch. As of today their are over 160,000 images of cemetery transcripts, various military records and Church records. The original collection is the work of Clarice (Taylor) Cubbins who passed away last year. For those researchers with Jewish ancestry the cemetery transcripts will be the most useful.

The collection is very easy to use.  As I always try to use the same surname when doing a beginning search, I entered the name Cohen in the search box and had 235 results returned. The first page of those results is below. 

I selected Rosa Cohen from the list. The results page (below) gave me most of the vital information, such as age at death and location of the burial.

To see if anything else could be gathered from the original source I followed by clicking the "View the Document" tab. I was then able to view the original, which came from FHL Film # 1363955. That original (below) also provided me with the names of Abraham and Sophia Cohen, the parents of little Rosa.