Family History Resources
Robert L. Weinberg Family History Center
The family history collection at the Robert L. Weinberg Family History Center contains many primary source materials, including:
- Birth, marriage, and death notices in the Baltimore Jewish Times, 1927 onward
- Jack Lewis Funeral Home records, 1924-1939, 1956-1965
- Published and unpublished genealogies of Maryland Jewish families
- Memoirs of Jewish Life in Maryland and Europe
- Selected circumcision, midwife, and marriage records kept by individual Baltimore-area mohels, midwives and rabbis
- HIAS arrival records (access restricted to families only)
- Historical Database of Baltimore Religious Personnel
- Hebrew Orphan Asylum records, 1873-1917
- Access to Ancestry.com (on-site only)
Additional resources include: archival collections from several Baltimore-area synagogues; records of local Jewish agencies, institutions and businesses; personal papers of prominent individuals; profiles of individuals and families in A History of the Jews of Baltimore (Blum, 1910) and other locally-published books; biographical, institutional and subject files related to Baltimore and Maryland Jewry; and oral histories of Maryland Jews. Periodicals that offer information on Maryland Jewry include the Baltimore Jewish Times (1919 to present), Jewish Comment (1895-1918), Jewish Chronicle (1875), Jewish Exponent (1887-1888), Sinai (1856-1860), Generations (1978 to present) and American Jewish Year Book (1899-1985). (Please note that much of the early periodical collection is available on microfilm only.) We also maintain a photograph collection related to immigration, Jewish life in Maryland, and the many institutions of Baltimore Jewry.
Baltimore Jewish Cemetery Research
The Baltimore Jewish cemetery research undertaken by JMM volunteers in the 1990s can be searched via the JewishGen JOWBR database: https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/.
We no longer post the original spreadsheets on our website, as the JOWBR database is a comprehensive collection of those files and is easy to search. Inventories of area Jewish cemeteries can also be found on the www.findagrave.com website, which is continually updated by community volunteers. We recommend using both resources in your research.
If you need further assistance, please contact the JMM staff at familyhistory@jewishmuseummd.org.