Genealogy Center

Although there have been Jews in the United States and in Lancaster County since colonial times, most of us are descended from immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  In recent years, the idea of “searching for one’s roots” has become extremely popular.  The advent of computers and the ever-increasing number of resources and databases have made the genealogical search accessible to anyone.
In 2007, the Jewish Genealogical Center was instituted at the Temple.  Located in the Library, the Center contains a collection of books and maps, and the computer has access to a number of databases, including ancestry.com, jewishgen.org, ellisisland.org and the Family History Library (Church of Latter-Day Saints).  Some of these resources were purchased with a gift from the 2007 Confirmation Class.  Others were donated by Tamsin Wolff.
The Center is currently open by appointment only.  You can make an appointment by contacting Alan Levine at roots@shaarai.org, or by calling 392-3509.  You can also leave a message with the temple office.  Alan, who has researched some branches of his own family back to the early nineteenth century, will gladly help anyone wishing to discover and document their own family history.
The Center is open to all members of the Lancaster community free of charge.  However, donations for printing supplies and copying will gladly be accepted.

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