Altona (Hamburg), Germany Vital Records

Hamburg was the home of one of Germany’s most storied Jewish communities, with centuries of history and unique Jewish personalities. Much of Hamburg’s Jewish life centered in the neighborhood of Altona, which was an independent city until 1937.

This collection is an index of the Ashkenazi birth, marriage and death records recorded in Altona from the 1820s until 1874. While there are some years missing and others with illegible entries, this is a remarkably complete register documenting the storied community of Altona.

In total, this database has over 4,000 entries and contains:

• 2,016 births
• 656 marriages
• 1,397 deaths

Many entries also contain Hebrew names, which have also been transcribed and are searchable.

These records cover the Ashkenazi Community of Altona and are located on FamilySearch film 1346960. Altona’s Sephardic community is documented on film 1346961. Meanwhile, the birth records of the Hamburg Jewish Community (which was separate from Altona) are available for the years 1781 through 1865 on FamilySearch films 1335028 through -30 and 1190978. After 1874, Germany adopted civil registration. Civil registration records from Altona and Hamburg beginning at that time are available on Ancestry.com.

These records were indexed by Michael Moritz, Director of the Romania Research Division, who has deep roots in Altona and gladly donated his work to JewishGen. Special thanks to Avraham Groll, as well as Alex Calzareth, Director of the Germany Research Division, and Avrohom Marmorstein.

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via JewishGen's German Database.