Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 2003-2010 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/clearing-house/index.htm
Updated: 28 July 2010

We all know that many of us researching our family histories in Southern Africa possess various documents, information, and other artifacts relating to our own research that may be useful to others who are also researching their family connections in this area.
 
It was agreed at the meeting of the SA-SIG at the 2000 International Jewish Genealogy Symposium in Salt Lake City, that it would be useful to create a clearinghouse of this information, and provide this resource to the SA-SIG research community.
 
The SA-SIG Clearinghouse will contain references to the various items with enough information to allow researchers to determine whether the actual item may be of interest to them. The Clearinghouse will also provide contact information (e.g. an e-mail or other address) to the person who owns the particular item of interest.
 
I am now in the process of creating this clearinghouse of information, which, when completed, will be accessible on the Web pages of the SA-SIG on the JewishGen Web site. Note that the Clearinghouse is initially planned to contain only the references to the various artifacts of interest, and not embody the actual information from the references themselves. It is hoped in the future that some consolidation of this information may be possible in an on-line database, but the latter project is out of the scope of the present Clearinghouse activity.
 
I am soliciting your help to make this Clearinghouse as comprehensive and complete as possible. I would appreciate your sending me information about any items that you possess which you think could be of possible interest to other researchers. Examples of such items are books, documents, articles, photographs, passenger lists, city directory information, etc.
 
Once again, I’m not asking that you necessarily send me copies of these actual items (unless you wish to), but rather I would like just a short description of the artifact that you own.
 
I will compile and organize these descriptions and make this information available via the SA-SIG web page.
 
For each item, please provide as much of the following information as you can:
 
Type of artifact, such as book, document, article, photograph, passenger list, city directory information, etc.

1. A short description of the item
2. Places mentioned or referred to in the artifact (towns, etc.)
3. The approximate time period that the item covers
4. Any surnames mentioned in the item
5. Anything else about the item that you think would be interesting to your fellow researchers
6. The method by which you would prefer to be contacted, if others were interested in learning more about your item (e.g. e-mail address, regular mail address, etc.)

• Article on the Jewish Community of King Williams Town, Cape Province, dated 1984.
• Photograph of the residents of the Cape Town Jewish Orphanage, 1920’s or 1930’s.
• Passenger list which documents the names of people sailing on the ship “Usaramo”, from Hamburg to South West Africa and South Africa in October 1931.
• Article on the history of the “Silver Aerated Water Factory”, a soft-drink factory that was established in Stellenbosch in 1902.
• Article from the SA Jewish Times (dated 1948) on the “Story of South African Jewry”.
• Partial extracts from Middledrift and King Williams Town (Cape Province) residents directories during the period 1922 - 1930.