SALT LAKE CITY — A helpful collection for Jewish genealogical research has recently expanded, making it more valuable to those of Jewish ancestry.
The Knowles Collection, started in 2007 by Todd Knowles, began with 6,500 records from the British Isles, has now expanded into five databases, organized by geographic region, and contains 115,000 names. And the best part about it is the names are now in one place.
"One of the biggest problems with Jewish records is that they are held all over the place and one person can have records in multiple places," said Knowles, a FamilySearch research consultant and the collection's manager. "That means someone just starting to research their Jewish ancestry will have to drive fro archive to archive and from synagogue to synagogue to find what they are looking for. What this collection does is put all the records in one location, which is an incredible time and cost savings for patrons."
Knowles said most of the growth of the collection is because of continued donations of family records by people throughout the world. He said he's received donations from Germany, Russia, Jamaica and many places in the United States, and received synagogue records from Hungary and the American South.
Anyone interested in donating records can contact Knowles at knowleswt@familysearch.org.