JewishGen is proud to announce its 2022 Summer update to the JOWBR (JewishGen’s Online Worldwide Burial Registry) database.

     Please visit www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/ to access the JOWBR database. If you’re a new JOWBR user, we recommend that you visit our screencast page at www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/Screencasts/  and take a look at the first two explanatory screencasts.

     This update, adds approximately 73,500 new records and 51,000 new photos.  The database is adding and/or updating 437 cemeteries.  This update brings JOWBR’s holdings to 4.25 million records and 953,000 photos from approximately 10,000 cemeteries / cemetery sections representing 144 countries! 

     Once again, donors for this update include a mix of individuals, Jewish genealogical societies, historical societies and museums.  We appreciate all our donor’s submissions and the transliteration work done by a faithful group of JewishGen volunteers. 

     Significant additions to JOWBR by country include:

• Australia – the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society (Victoria), Inc. submitted approximately 4,000 new records for 14 different existing and new JOWBR cemeteries, the majority from Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth.
• Brazil – approximately 1,400 records, mostly from smaller cemeteries around Sao Paulo. More Sao Paulo records to come.
• Canada – 1,700 new records and 10,100 photos from new and existing cemeteries submitted primarily from the JGS of Montreal and the JGS of Toronto.  In addition, a group of cemetery records from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saint John have been added.
• Czech Republic – approximately 3,200 records and 1,600 photos from 6 new and updated cemeteries, the largest sets from Karlovy Vary and Golčŭv Jeníkov.
• England – 7,800 records and 1,900 photos from 13 new and updated cemeteries, the majority of which are from Blackley Jewish Cemetery and Plashet Cemetery.
• Morocco – 3,400 records from 3 cemeteries, including Marrakech and Tetouan.
• Russia – added 3,300 records and 1,400 photographs from 16 new and 3 updated Russian cemeteries, the largest set from Nizhny Novgorod. 
• United States - approximately 52,300 new records and 32,000 photos for 148 new and 47 updated cemeteries. Significant additions came from completing the Lasky Collection, volunteers from the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, and a number of dedicated individual volunteers and representatives of synagogues and historical societies.

     Please see www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/tree/CemList.htm for a complete listing of all cemeteries in JOWBR.

     I want to particularly thank Eric Feinstein who has been helping me to find and gain permission to add many US and non-US records, especially worldwide veteran burials.  Eric’s group of volunteers includes Sandra Bennett, Lineke Bos, Malka Chosnek, Ann Meddin Hellman, Maurice Kessler, Deborah Ross, Marylin Shalks, and Suzanne Tarica. In addition, a big thank you to our volunteer transliterators, led by Gilberto Jugend, Anya Givental, and Yuliana Murray, without whom we would not be able to add the information from some very difficult to read photos.

     We appreciate all the work our donors have done and encourage you to make additional submissions.  Whether you work on a cemetery / cemetery section individually or consider a group project for your local Society, temple or other group, it’s your submissions that help grow the JOWBR database and make it possible for researchers and family members to find answers they otherwise might not.  Please also consider other organizations you may be affiliated with that may already have done cemetery indexing that would consider having their records included in the JOWBR database.

     Our next update will include submissions received by November 30^th for an update to be made by year-end.

Nolan Altman

NAltman@...

JewishGen Director for Special Projects - JOWBR

July 2022