Genealogy by Country (Jewish, African American, Asian, Indigenous)

Some research communities face record gaps (slavery, Holocaust, displacement) and have built specialized free aggregators to fill them. For broader country pages see Genealogy By Country (Continental Europe) and Genealogy By Country (US/UK/IE); for DNA's role in restoring lost lineages see Genealogy Adoption & Unknown Parentage; for ethics see Genealogy Privacy & Ethics.

Jewish genealogy

Free aggregators

• ★ ★ JewishGen — free (free account; donate-to-sustain model). The Jewish-genealogy aggregator. Hosts:
  • JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) — surname / town research index.
  • JewishGen Communities Database — every shtetl + town with name variants (Yiddish / Polish / German / Ukrainian / Hebrew).
  • All Country Databases — Belarus, Galicia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Sub-Carpathia.
  • JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) — Jewish cemetery transcriptions worldwide.
  • Holocaust Database — survivor + victim records.
  • Yizkor Books Project — translated memorial books for destroyed communities.
  • InfoFiles + Discussion Lists — research help.
  • https://www.jewishgen.org/
• ★ Yad Vashem (Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names) — free; ~5M Holocaust victim records; Pages of Testimony; deportation lists; survivor testimonies.
  • https://yvng.yadvashem.org/
• ★ Avotaynu Online + Avotaynu (paid journal) — paid + free; the Jewish genealogy journal of record.
• The Israel Genealogical Society / IGRA — paid + free; Israeli records.
• Historical Jewish Press (NLI) — free; Hebrew + Yiddish newspapers.
• Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database (USHMM) — free.
• ITS (Arolsen Archives) — free; ~30M documents related to Nazi victims, displaced persons, forced labor.

Country-specific Jewish databases

• Litvak SIG — free; Lithuanian Jewish records.
• Belarus SIG, Hungary SIG, Romania SIG, Sub-Carpathia SIG, Ukraine SIG, Latvia SIG — JewishGen-affiliated regional groups.
• GenAmi — French Jewish.
• Genealogy Indexer — free; Polish + Galician + Yiddish (see Genealogy By Country (Europe)).
• Geneanet Jewish Genealogy — paid + free; growing.
• MyHeritage Jewish records — paid; strong on Israeli data.

DNA-side

• AshkenazicDNA endogamy is high; cousin-match interpretation is harder. Smaller cM thresholds for distant relations; expect many 2nd-3rd-cousin matches that are actually 5th-6th. Use GEDmatch clusters carefully.
• AvotaynuDNA — Jewish-specialty DNA project at FTDNA.

African American genealogy

The pre-1865 wall

The fundamental challenge: enslaved ancestors were rarely named in census (counted by tick-mark) until 1870. Strategies:

• 1870 Census — first US census naming formerly enslaved people.
• Freedmen's Bureau Records — free at FamilySearch + NARA; 1865–1872; labor contracts, marriage registrations, complaints.
• Slave Schedules (1850 + 1860) — list enslaved people only by age + sex under enslaver's name, but proximity in census + enslaver-name-clusters help.
• Wills + estate inventories of enslavers — free at state archives + FamilySearch + Ancestry; enslaved people often listed by name with dollar valuations.
• Plantation records — held at university libraries (UNC Wilson Library, Duke Rubenstein, etc.); free in person, paid copies.
• Bills of sale — county deed books often record sales of enslaved people.

Aggregators / community

• ★ AfriGeneas — free; the long-running African-American genealogy hub.
• ★ Slave Voyages Database — free; Atlantic slave-trade voyages.
• Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS) — paid membership.
• Black ProGen — community of professional Black genealogists; free YouTube + paid courses.
• Lowcountry Africana — free; SC / GA / FL specialty.
• Beyond Kin Project — community methodology for researching enslaver-and-enslaved together.
• Reclaim the Records — free; FOIA-released US records.

Specific record sets

• United States Colored Troops (USCT) records — free at NARA / FamilySearch / Fold3.
• Freedman's Bank records — free; deposit records 1865–1874 with biographical detail (parents, siblings).
• Cohabitation Records — free; some Southern states post-1865 registered formerly-enslaved couples' marriages.
• WPA Slave Narratives — free at LOC; ~2,300 first-person narratives from 1936–1938 interviews.

DNA's role

• AfricanAncestry.com — paid Y/mtDNA specialist for African-haplogroup placement.
• AncestryDNA + 23andMe ethnicity panels — improved African regional resolution post-2020.
• GEDmatch + DNA Painter — see Genealogy DNA Third-Party Analysis; useful for tracing past the 1870 wall via DNA cousin clusters.

Indigenous American (Native American)

• Tribal enrollment processes vary by tribe; first stop is the tribe itself.
• ★ Dawes Rolls (1898–1914) — free at NARA / FamilySearch; the federal enrollment of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole.
• Indian Census Rolls (1885–1940) — free at NARA / FamilySearch.
• Eastern Cherokee Applications (1906–1909) — free; "Guion Miller Roll."
• Five Civilized Tribes records — free; deep federal collections.
• NARA Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs — free indexes, paid copies.
• AIGS (American Indian Genealogical Society) — paid + free.
• Native Land Digital — free; pre-contact territorial map.
• Caveat: "Cherokee princess" family stories are usually unverified; DNA tests showing 0% Indigenous despite oral tradition are common. Treat with respectful skepticism; document what's actually documented.

Latin American / Hispanic

• ★ FamilySearch Latin records — free; Mexican + Central + South American Catholic parish records (extensive).
• FamilySearch Mexican parish records — free; baptisms, marriages, deaths.
• Ancestry Mexican records — paid; smaller.
• Geneanet Spain + Latin America — paid + free.
• MyHeritage Latin America — paid.
• Hispanic Genealogical Society (Texas) — paid + free.
• Genealogía Hispana — community.
• Family Search Iberian Peninsula records — free.

Asian genealogy

The variety is huge; record systems differ fundamentally from Western. Some highlights:

Chinese

• FamilySearch China — free; some parish-equivalent + lineage records.
• Genealogical Society of Utah's Chinese collection — historical zupu (lineage books).
• Roots Project (Chinese Heritage Project) — academic.
• MyChinaRoots — paid; specialty research service.
• Hong Kong / Taiwan — government archives, partial.

Korean

• FamilySearch Korea — free; jokbo (lineage books) + later civil records.
• National Archives of Korea — free; modern records.
• Jokbo (族譜) tradition — clan-genealogy books; held by clan associations.

Japanese

• Koseki (戸籍) family register — accessed via Japanese government; descendant-only access; usually requires a relative in Japan.
• FamilySearch Japan — free; partial.
• Buddhist temple death registers (kakocho) — accessed by direct contact with temple.
• Honke / Bunke (本家・分家) hierarchy — main-line vs. branch-line family relationships.

Indian / South Asian

• FamilySearch India — free; partial coverage.
• Indian National Archives — free; partial digitization.
• Bhansali Pancha Pandyas — caste-based hereditary genealogy keepers (Pandas at pilgrimage sites maintain handwritten records of pilgrim families going back centuries).

Philippine

• FamilySearch Philippines — free; Catholic parish records.
• Pinoy Genealogy Project — community.

What's changing in 2024–2026

• JewishGen continued data ingestion — Hungarian, Romanian, Sub-Carpathian, Belarusian additions.
• Yad Vashem name database continues growing; increasingly cross-referenced with Arolsen.
• FamilySearch Mexican parish records depth-of-coverage is now the gold standard for Hispanic research.
• Slave Voyages Database expanding intra-American voyage records.
• AI translation of jokbo / koseki / parish Latin / Yiddish — vision LLMs (Claude / GPT-4o) reading non-Latin scripts has made previously-impossible-DIY translation tractable. See Genealogy Translation & Paleography.
• Reclaim the Records continues FOIA-pressuring US states to release records that should be public.
• Genealogy of African ancestors — increasingly tractable thanks to AfricanAncestry + improved DNA panels + Beyond Kin methodology + plantation-record digitization.

Pick this if…

• Jewish genealogy: start at JewishGen + Yad Vashem; both free.
• African American + pre-1865 wall: AfriGeneas + Slave Voyages + Freedmen's Bureau + enslaver wills via FamilySearch / Ancestry.
• Indigenous American: Dawes Rolls + Indian Census Rolls + tribal enrollment office.
• Hispanic / Latin American: FamilySearch (Mexican + Latin records, deep + free).
• Chinese / Korean / Japanese: FamilySearch (partial) + lineage / koseki via family contacts.
• Holocaust research: Yad Vashem + Arolsen Archives + JewishGen Holocaust Database.
• Crossing the 1865 / 1922 / 1939 walls: combine documentary research + DNA cousin clustering (see Genealogy DNA Third-Party Analysis).