Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain Blog

"The world’s largest archive of magazines – is in South-East London. An old building in the former military arsenal at Woolwich contains the world’s largest repository of magazines. HyMag – formerly The Hyman Archive – was founded by media industry-insider James Hyman in 2011. It holds the Guinness World Record for ‘Largest Collection of Magazines’ with over 150,000 magazines from the 1850s to modern times. All those magazines you avidly read as kids long before things were made available online and thought were lost forever, or difficult to find on eBay, they’re here in the archive, in South-East London. HyMag is based in Cannon House (which itself was for a while the British Library Book Repository) within the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Although it’s not open to the general public — just researchers — they are working on digitising their collection to make it widely available. The digital archive is expected to launch next year. Unfortunately, as with many private o...

Here are the details of a Hidden Treasures event about synagogue archives on Sunday 18th October from 6 – 7.15pm (UK time). Speakers are: Rachel Lichtenstein of the Sandys Row Archives, Lizzie Baker of the Lahav project at the Tyne and Wear Archives and Professor David Newman who will speak as an enthusiastic user of the London Metropolitan Archives. The event will be chaired by Gillian Merron of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The event will be live-streamed at https://celebratingjewisharchives.org/hidden-treasures-from-the-uks-synagogues and on Twitter and Facebook @seethetreasures. You can also see it live at the Board of Deputies You Tube page.    

Hidden Treasures is a celebration of Jewish archives in Britain. The JGSGB have been involved with this project. Please have a look at the new website: https://celebratingjewisharchives.org/ "Archives featured on the website are part of a national network of state, local and communal archives that will enable you to discover more about the history of Jews and the Jewish community in Britain. It might even help you uncover some of your own family’s history. We are always looking for new archives to feature so if you are an institution, organisation or community group with an archive that relates to the history of Jews in Britain, then please get in touch ." To celebrate the launch of Hidden Treasures, the Jewish Chronicle have a special reduced-price offer of £1 (instead of £2.50) for a day pass to access their online archive . Jewish Chronicle subscribers can access the archive for free. Please enter HIDDENTREASURE as the checkout code. https://celebratingjewisharchives...