English law regarding proscribed marriage partners was based entirely on those laid down by the Anglican Church and stemmed from Henry VIII’s reformation of the English Church. These laws almost exactly correspond with those set out in Leviticus, which, whilst explicitly naming the parties forbidden to marry, makes no mention of a deceased wife’s...
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The cemetery at Ayres Quay Jewish Cemetery in Sunderland, presently classed by Jewish Heritage UK as a “site at Risk” was closed in 1856. However, a space was reserved for a memorial to David Johnasson, a local landowner, ship owner, owner of the Usworth Colliery, and a senior member of the community, who died...
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A quick review of the numbers and names on GenPals CemeteryScribes Cemetery Project. Since we launched the site with 500 entries back in Nov 2007 it has grown and grown! There are now over 8,000 individuals listed, so we thought it would be interesting to look at the top ten family names: Levy Cohen...
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Who, in the Jewish establishment, is responsible for the Bancroft Road (Maiden Lane) Cemetery? The argument has raged for over 100 years. While that once historic burial ground has been reduced to a weed-covered desert and is now beyond restoration, enthusiastic local activists have not only done, literally, ground-breaking work to restore the historic...
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We have been asked many times why we do not include photos of headstones where the individual died after 1928. We took the view when we started this project, that while we want to record the information that has been inscribed on headstones and make that information freely available, we would need to keep...
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Among the photographs kindly donated by Dr. Helen Fry, was one from the Exeter Jewish Cemetery for Hannah Montefiore, wife of Moses d’Ancona. The inscription on her stone reads “Hannah relict of Moses Ancona daughter of Moses Montefiore died April 25 5599 ages 71. From the Hebrew inscription: Hannah bat Moshe … In a...
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A letter to the Hull Packet dated 29th Aug 1849 and printed in the Friday edition a couple days later describes the following situation. Arnold Eichborn, a penniless cabinet maker, had died earlier that week. Due to the distance his body would have to be carried, the expense of interment was considerable, and had...
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It would have been around 1991 that I first visited the Jewish Cemetery in Alderney Road, London E., the oldest Ashkenazi burial ground in Britain, dating from 1696\7. We came upon it, quite by chance, on our way back from the Tower Hamlets Family History Library in Bancroft Road. There was a door in...
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We were delighted a week ago when Marcus Roberts, Founder and Director of Jtrails contacted us to offer further information for use on the GenPals Cemetery Project website, which we hope to be able to add soon. Marcus supplied the definitive identification for the Northampton Stone in 1992, the only known example of a...
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Frank Gent is one of the great servants of Anglo-Jewish Genealogy. It is thanks to him that, following the untimely death of that great proponent of Anglo Jewry, Rabbi Dr. Bernard Susser, that the latter’s considerable legacy of Jewish Record transcripts, and other material, was not only saved for posterity but was catalogued and...
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