2025 IAJGS conference, Fort Wayne, Indiana 10-14 August 2025

 

Never to early to plan ahead for Fort Wayne in 2025. Looks to be another wonderful conference.

Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogical Society

 

Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959

Slightly over a year ago in this blog, I wrote about the Kelly Street Historic Jewish Cemeteries of Indianapolis, Indiana. These cemeteries filled the need of the growing Jewish community in Indianapolis. That community, which  consisted of 8 different congregations, came into being in 1856. The records of those cemeteries, which are now also part of the Knowles Collection, is a wonderful source for Indiana Jewry.
Now, another great source for the Jews of Indiana is available at www.familysearch.org. That collection, Indiana Marriages, 1811-1959, which was indexed in partnership with the Indiana Genealogical Society, now contains over 1,100,000 images. These records come from all Indiana counties, except for Howard, Johnson and Montgomery.
The images, which are name search able and available for free are of very good quality. The example below, is the marriage record of Abe Karp and Dora Cohen, who took out the license on 17 Jul 1913 and were married 3 days later on 20 July 1913. The information about the couple is amazing on this form. We not only get their dates of birth, but also parents names and addresses.

The Kelly Street Historic Jewish Cemeteries of Indianapolis, Indiana

By the middle of the 19th century, the population of the city of Indianapolis, Indiana included a large German community. Sometime shortly before 1856, the earliest of the Jewish settlers in Indianapolis also made this community their home. In 1856, the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation (IHC) was formed, which became the first in the city.As the congregation grew older it became necessary to buy land for the burials of its members and

that they did so. A large piece of land  was purchased on Kelly Street.

Over time, especially with the immigration from Eastern Europe in the 1880s, more and more immigrants meant more synagogues. They all needed to have their own burial grounds, so land was sold to them by IHC. This led to the land actually become not one but eight burial grounds serving the various Jewish Congregations. Those congregations were;

• Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation 
• Shara Tefilo                                     
• Ohev Zedeck                                     
• Knesses Israel                                  
• United Hebrew Congregation           
• Esras Achem                                   
• Congregation Etz Haim Sefarad    
• Congregation Beth-El Zedeck          

Beginning in 2006 the Kelly Street Historic Jewish Cemetery project was formed. Under the direction of Gloria Green, the project leader, teams set out to document and photograph the records of the burials in these historical cemeteries located on Kelly Street. Their incredible work has led to having the information on over 5,600 burials preserved for future generations. Thanks to their service to the Jewish community of Indianapolis and the world, these great people, who have passed, will never be forgotten.

I am also extremely humbled to have had a copy of this project donated to the Knowles Collection- Jews of North America. It will be available for all after the next update.