Next year in . . .Indiana?

by Maura Lerner Fisher

At first blush, you wouldn’t think of Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a hotbed of Jewish genealogy. But next August, this little corner of northeast Indiana will host the annual conference of the International Association Jewish Genealogical Societies.

The reason is a bit of a surprise. Since 1961, the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne has quietly turned into a world-class genealogy center.  Yet it’s still something of a “well-kept secret,” admits Curt Witcher, the center’s manager. To Witcher, the Jewish genealogy conference is a chance to raise its profile and showcase the extensive collection of resources — and expertise — that his center can offer to a Jewish audience. 

On February 23, he gave a preview for MNJGS members and guests as the featured speaker at a Zoom presentation about the upcoming conference. 

Last August, at the 2024 conference in Philadelphia, Witcher was bombarded with questions about the upcoming one in Fort Wayne. “The most frequently asked question was some form of Why?” he said with a laugh. And after that, “where is Fort Wayne?” 

 The answer to the first question, he explained, begins with the story of an eccentric Fort Wayne librarian named Fred J. Reynolds who set out, in the 1950s, to create a collection that would appeal to people searching their family roots. Reynolds started collecting church histories and historical records from local communities, in what ultimately grew to a collection of nearly 1.3 million items, and counting. 

“He was so passionate about public libraries serving the public,” said Witcher. “He saw that interest in genealogy would continue to grow. He was like a visionary.” 

While the genealogy center caters to all groups, it has made a special effort to obtain collections of special interest to the Jewish community. Among other things, it has collected synagogue histories from throughout the country, as well as memorial “Yizkor books” of Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust, and what he calls “every single Jewish genealogy guidebook.”

It also offers access to online collections of major Jewish organizations, such as the Shoah Foundation and Jewish Historical Society, as well as “all major genealogical online databases.” Plus it has a small army of specially-trained librarians and assistants trained to assist people with genealogy questions, and provide what he calls a personalized research experience. 

The center has flourished for more than 60 years, he notes, thanks to the support of local taxpayers, who have funded the center as a free resource for anyone in the world. 

You can check out the center and its collection on its website, www.genealogycenter.org. T

 The 2025 IAJGS conference will run from Aug. 10-14 in Fort Wayne. For more information, go to IAJGS Conference 2025.