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Find Family
Reclaim a Piece of Your Personal History. . .
The HIAS Location Service was established early in the twentieth century to help emigres re-establish contact with family and friends with whom they had lost touch during the years of massive Jewish migration. The HIAS Location Service faced its greatest challenge after World War II, when it helped thousands of displaced persons contact their U.S. relatives.
Today, HIAS continues to receive many requests from people around the world who are trying to locate their relatives and friends. Additional inquiries come from those who are engaged in genealogical research and wish to learn about the origins and experiences of their ancestors who immigrated to this country early in the last century.
Browse through HIAS' Online Location Search Inquiries
In order to better assist you in your search, HIAS has made these location search inquiries available for you browse through on this site. Listings will be updated periodically. A Russian language version of the listings will be coming soon. Click here to Current Listings.
Initiating a Search
If you are looking for a family member or a friend with whom you have lost contact, whether you believe this person to be in the United States or abroad, the HIAS Location Service may be able to help you. Likewise, if your interest is in locating the ancestral village of your forebears or in retracing an ancestor’s journey to the U.S., HIAS may be able to aid you in your research.
Often, the Location Service can find important leads in the extensive records of individuals who arrived in the United States under the auspices of HIAS. Additionally, searches are conducted by working closely with a network of affiliated agencies around the United States, Jewish organizations worldwide, other international agencies, libraries, and national archives. Many location requests can be resolved with a few phone calls. Other searches may be much more difficult, taking anywhere from a few days to more than a year.
Please note: Although HIAS has been in existence since 1881, we have access to HIAS documents from 1909 through today only. If you need information about someone who arrived to the United States with the help of HIAS prior to 1909, we will likely not have related documents.
You can initiate a HIAS Location Service search by completing a Location Service Search Form. You may also request a form by calling HIAS at 212-613-1409 if you live in the New York metropolitan area; 1-800-HIAS-714 outside the New York metropolitan area; by writing to HIAS Location Service, 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001-5004; by faxing your request to 212-967-4383; or via e-mail at location@hias.org.
Click here to request search services.
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HIAS Arrival Card
Click Here or on the image to request an arrival card. |
Immigrant Record Search Request
HIAS archives are rich with nearly a century of Jewish history. They chronicle the modern day drama of a people who have migrated for centuries throughout the world.
After the Holocaust, HIAS assisted thousands of Jews to leave a devastated Europe to find new homes and build new lives in freedom. Working in the displaced persons camps, HIAS helped survivors to locate family in the United States, to secure visas and to travel to their new homelands. HIAS archives contain the arrival cards for those individuals and families that migrated from the displaced persons camps to the United States. These cards can be located by the HIAS Location Service and copied as a testament to your family’s endurance.
Please note: We only have access to arrival cards from 1909 to the present.
NEW!
During the last wave of immigration when HIAS was instrumental in bringing hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to America, some of them unfortunately passed away in transit. We now have the opportunity to locate the burial sites of these people, in Rome. To make a request, please fill out an Immigrant Record Search form adding the date of death for the person in question.
HIAS Success Stories
To read about HIAS Success Stories click here.
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