Advanced Genealogy
Jewish Records
Jews have been coming intermittently to Britain since the Middle Ages – and been expelled too, as they were in 1290. The majority of English Jews are of Ashkenazi origin (from the Hebrew word meaning ‘German’). Thousands of Ashkenazi Jews entered the country to escape persecution throughout the nineteenth century, and many of them formed communities in the East End of London or in industrial cities such as Leeds. There are papers and records on Jewish immigration at the PRO in Kew; the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain has a wealth of information, and the Jewish Refugees Committee holds the personal files of up to 400,000 refugees, though access to them is restricted. Failing these options, if you know which Jewish community your ancestors lived in, there may be local records in a synagogue, or they may have been deposited at a local records office. Be aware that records of Ashkenazi Jews can present a problem because they are often written in Hebrew or Yiddish. Specialist help may be needed.
There is one other problem when it comes to tracking Jewish ancestry: the way in which names became anglicised as immigrants were assimilated into British society. The name Moss, for example, if often derived from the surname Moses.