Cemetery Research in the New York Area Using JGSNY's Burial Societies Database – And More

The Jewish Genealogical Society of New York (JGSNY) promotes research in Jewish genealogy in and/or regarding the New York metropolitan area. One of JGSNY’s earliest projects was the documentation of the approximately 100 Jewish cemeteries in the New York metropolitan area. The society’s website, https://jgsny.org/, provides extensive contact and location information about these cemeteries in the New York Metropolitan area, including links to their websites.

The follow-up Burial Societies Project begun in 1989 aimed to identify the names and cemetery locations of all Jewish burial society plots in the New York metropolitan area. Included were plots belonging to landsmanshaftn, or hometown associations, whose membership often conveyed the right to be buried in a society plot; synagogues; family circles; fraternal organizations; and labor unions. It contains geographic references if applicable. The database is well-maintained and continually updated, and serves as a starting point for cemetery research using cemetery websites, public interment sites, death certificates, obituaries and other resources in the New York metropolitan area, and can serve as a model for other metro areas. This talk examines these resources in detail and presents several scenarios for research.

Steve Stein, President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York, is a retired software professional and manager in the telecommunications industry. He has been researching his own and his wife’s genealogies for more than 45 years, whose origins include Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, and Romania.

He has volunteered for JewishGen’s Belarus and Hungary Research Divisions and the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry, and manages the KehilaLinks site for Nyasvizh, Belarus and Kupil, Ukraine (in development). He has spoken at Jewish Genealogy conferences as well as to several groups in the New York area.

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