The mandate of the Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee National Archives is to collect archival and reference material on Jewish life in Canada. As a general rule, birth, death and marriage records are not available here. We offer a limited amount of information about current and past Jewish communities outside Canada.
RESOURCES AVAILABLE:
MAJOR RESOURCES AVAILABLE:
“Personalia” files of clippings, obituaries, and occasional correspondence for approximately 10,000 individuals. All of these are indexed on computer.
Pre-1900 personalia files, including many family trees of the first Jewish families to settle in Canada, particularly in this province. Much of the material in these files is photocopied from originals in other archives.
United Jewish Relief Agencies files, listed by name on computer. This includes case files for individuals who came here during and after WWII as refugees, War Orphans, and German-Jewish internees. These case files are open to the public (with restrictions at the discretion of the archives).
Jewish Colonization Association files, listed by name on a word-processor-produced finding aid. Includes family details on settlers in Western agricultural colonies circa 1906-1935, for farms in the Laurentian mountain area of Quebec from 1909-1973, as well as around the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, 1939-1977.
Harry Hershman War Orphan files of 1921, listed by name on computer. Mostly in Yiddish, includes identification photos. These case files (semi-restricted, at Archives discretion), include the approximately 200 child immigrants who came to Canada from the Polish-Ukraine after WWI.
Synagogue birth registers, microfilmed. For Sherbrooke, Quebec, synagogue (1907-1985) and Hamilton, Ontario (1924-1940). Also, two Winnipeg synagogues have deposited copies of their birth and child-naming certificates with us, going back to the 1970s. We also have copies of the earliest synagogue registers in Montreal, covering the years 1841-1883. Through the Archives computer, information about how to locate other synagogue records can be obtained.
Burial register, Baron de Hirsch cemetery Montreal 1906-1964 (microfilm and paper copy). This valuable copy was made in 1998 from the original old register belonging to this historic cemetery, the burial place for a large proportion of Montreal’s less affluent Jewish inhabitants from the earliest years of the 20th century onwards.
The Montreal Synagogue Finder. This computerized document functions as a guide to synagogues past and present in Montreal, by permitting searches by name or nickname of congregation, address or partial address, and often by name of rabbi. Tracing a synagogue which has moved or merged with others can provide a means of locating circumcision, bar-mitzvah, and marriage records where civil records are unable to help. This guide is not available in complete form due to security considerations but can be searched by contacting Archives staff. (archives@cjccc.ca).
Canadian Jewish Congress War Efforts Committee files, with computerized finding aid prepared at a file level. These records contain nominal lists of Jewish servicemen in each branch of the Canadian Armed Forces during WWII, in all around 10,000 names. There are also biographical information files on many servicemen. While the lists themselves are not indexed on computer, files of information on particular individuals can be mechanically searched. In addition, two volumes of Jewish servicemen biographies were produced by CJC right after the war, and can be consulted here or purchased in photocopied format.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES
Jewish Immigrant Aid Services files. Includes migration, social service and family-tracing request files. Earliest ones date to 1920. A large proportion of Jewish immigrants to Canada were assisted by JIAS, and a large proportion of these immigrants passed through or settled in Montreal. The greater part of the index to these cases is entered on the CJC database, with the remainder available via card files search through the Montreal JIAS office. Access to all case file material is restricted at the discretion of JIAS.
Baron de Hirsch school, Baron de Hirsch Institute minutes
and lists, some on microfilm. These records, approximately 1895-1917, contain
a lot of names of immigrants and recently immigrated Montrealers. No index to
these names is currently available.
(Many researchers write that they were settled or helped by this organization.
However, the records do not usually say anything about the family aside from
the name.)
Hebrew Sick Benefit Association files. The records of this large Montreal burial and mutual aid society cover the years 1892-1989 and include membership (address, next of kin, etc.) and burial plot information. A large proportion of the records are in Yiddish. There is no index at present to the names in the records.
Combined Jewish Appeal Honour Rolls and Prospect lists, Montreal. The Jewish fund-raising campaign in Montreal produced lists of contributors and potential contributors, including addresses. The Archives has donor books from 1951-1968, as well as “prospect lists” of synagogue members and mutual aid society members, for 1959 and 1960 only. The synagogue and organization names are listed on computer, but the names are not.
United Restitution Organization Claim files, indexed by name on the CJC Archives database. Approximately 11,000 Montreal and Vancouver (also some Toronto and Ottawa) case files, which include family and immigration information, as well as a chronicle (usually in German) of the claimant's WWII experiences. There are many more files still stored at the U.R.O. Montreal office. The CJC files are not restricted, except at the discretion of the Archives, but we require the assistance of the URO staff to locate a file.
Other name registers, in addition to those listed above:
Jewish residents of Toronto in the 1861-1901 census of
Canada - on microfiche
Jewish residents of the Maritimes in the 1901 census of Canada - on microfiche
Jewish residents of Montreal, Quebec City in the 1871-1901 census - on microfiche
PUBLISHED SOURCES
Reference books on tracing Jewish roots
Includes Where Once We Walked, Gilbert’s Atlas of the Holocaust, back issues of AVOTAYNU genealogy magazine (USA and international) and SHEM TOV newsletter (Toronto).
Also recommended: for 1909-1914 references: Lawrence
Tapper’s Biographical Index to the Canadian Jewish Times (#CJC-LIB-TAP)
for 1920s references: A.D. Hart’s The Jew in Canada.
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