A structured approach to connecting Jewish archival records
The project is developing a structured digital resource linking individuals, families, communities, and places across early modern Jewish archival sources.
Its initial focus is the Western Sephardic diaspora, using London as a controlled proof of concept. This provides a practical environment in which to develop and test methods before extending the approach to other Jewish communities.
Why this focus
The Western Sephardic diaspora is an effective pilot population.
It is:
- sufficiently bounded to make the problem tractable
- historically interconnected across Europe and the Atlantic world
- documented across multiple archival systems
These include Jewish communal archives, civil and notarial records, parish and ecclesiastical sources, and Inquisition material.
This combination allows the project to address the full complexity of linking records across archives, languages, and jurisdictions within a manageable framework.
What the project does
The project extracts data from historical records, standardises names and places, and links references relating to the same individuals across different sources.
The result is a structured dataset in which:
- individuals can be identified across multiple records
- family relationships can be reconstructed
- communities can be traced across time and place
This creates a foundation for research, heritage interpretation, and public access.
London proof of concept
The current phase focuses on London records as a live demonstration of the methodology.
London is used as the first stage because it provides:
- a substantial but manageable body of material
- repeated, structured records suitable for comparison
- strong connections to wider European and Atlantic networks
Initial work centres on material associated with Bevis Marks and related sources.
The aim of the London phase is not to solve the entire dataset, but to demonstrate a controlled and reliable method for extracting, structuring, and linking archival data.
Outputs
The project produces structured digital heritage outputs, including:
- linked individual records
- family groupings and networks
- transcribed and structured archival material
- place-linked historical data
- foundations for mapping and timeline-based visualisation
These outputs enable Jewish history to be explored through identifiable people, relationships, and locations.
A scalable model
The Western Sephardic diaspora is the starting point, not the endpoint.
The methodology is designed to be:
- reproducible across different archival contexts
- adaptable to other Jewish communities
- scalable to larger and more complex datasets
The long-term aim is to establish a framework for connecting Jewish archival records across Europe and beyond.