Ready to Explore Your Family History?
We can help! The Genealogy Institute is open Monday-Thursday from 9:30am to 4:30pm. No appointments are required. (See the rules and policies of the Genealogy Institute and Reading Room here.) We are also responding to your inquiries via email and phone, and are available for more intensive one-on-one zoom sessions, as needed. To help you get started in your genealogy research or to learn how to access the Center's resources, see our genealogy guides here.
Schedule a free 45-minute one-on-one Zoom with a Librarian to receive suggestions for your research or a free Zoom workshop for your senior center, synagogue, school, or community group.
We thank Ancestry for generously providing the Center for Jewish History with free DNA kits to distribute to Holocaust survivors or the children of Holocaust survivors. If you fall into one of these categories and would like to receive a code for a free Ancestry DNA kit, please APPLY HERE.
Search by Region
Click on a country or region on the map to discover resources about your ancestral town. For guides to additional countries (including the U.S.) and topics, please click here.
Visit Us
The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute provides access to a wealth of genealogical resources through the Center for Jewish History's partner collections and the Institute's extensive reference collection, online databases, and a variety of research guides.
Group Visits
The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute welcomes groups and classes of all ages and backgrounds. Visitors may learn how to begin tracing their roots, explore primary sources useful to genealogy research, and gain hands-on experience searching for their ancestors in online databases. We have provided personalized sessions for high school, undergraduate, and graduate classes, non-profit organizations, synagogues, and senior centers. All classes can be customized to suit your needs. To schedule your group visit, please email us.
Image: Detail, The Written World (Diane Samuels, 2014)
Commissioned by The Center for Jewish History for the Lillian Goldman Reading Room
Did you know?
The collections of the Center’s five partner organizations—The American Jewish Historical Society, The American Sephardi Federation, The Leo Baeck Institute, The Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research—as well as the collection of the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute and the Center’s digital collections can all be accessed through one central online catalog? Go to http://search.cjh.org to begin exploring the breadth of modern Jewish experience as documented in our collections.
Image: Unidentified Family, 19th century
Photograph black-and-white postcard
From the Leo Baeck Institute LBI Photograph Collection
Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute
PID: 891299
Call Number: F 1966F
Family History Collections
The American Jewish Historical Society located at the Center for Jewish History has indexed a number of their genealogy-related collections. Search for your family name in these collections here.
Image: Fischer Family, 1870
Black-and-white photograph
From the Johanna Fischer Family Collection (AR 4289)
Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute
PID: 854990
Call Number: F 17066