Overview - Estonian Resources

Introduction

Although the Jewish community in Estonia was very small, there is an abundance of information available on both Estonia and its Jewish community. In particular, the websites of the National Archives of Estonia and the Estonian Jewish Museum hold extensive resources and digitized documents that should meet the needs of most researchers. The Estonian Jewish Museum’s website includes the Estonian Jewry Archive, formerly a separate website. The Estonian Jewry Archive has information about the historical, cultural, and genealogical aspects of the Jewish community in Estonia, including various community lists and a searchable database of Estonian Jews.

Several cities in southern Estonia were part of Livonia/Livland gubernia, and as such, some records are still held in the Latvian State Historical Archives (LVVA), which holds records of the former province. Rahvusarchiv also holds digital copies of these records.

For more detailed information, see the following pages on this website:

National Archives of Estonia (Rahvusarchiv)

Estonian Jewish Museum and Estonian Jewry Archive

Other Estonian Resources

Facebook group – Jewish Community of Estonia

Estonian Genealogical Word List

FamilySearch - holds digitized Estonian records as part of its vast unindexed collection, including registers of Jewish vital records, 1897 census listings (those that have survived), interwar Jewish population registers, passport applications, and citizenship documents. Copies of these documents may also be found on the Estonian National Archives website

Latvian State Historical Archives – holds both digitized vital records and 1897 census records for towns of southern Estonia that were part of Livland gubernia. These are digitized on the Raduraksti website, but have not been indexed, nor are they included in the JewishGen Latvia database. These documents also appear on the Estonian National Archives website.

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