The Knowles Collection (online search page pictured) links generations of Jewish families around the world. Photo: Screenshot of Knowles Collection website.

JNS.org – A growing Jewish genealogy database announced that it has reached 1 million entries.

The Knowles Collection, which globally links generations of Jewish families, launched about seven years ago and is searchable for free online at FamilySearch.org/family-trees. The database has been growing by about 10,000 names per month, with contributions of records from more than 80 countries.

Though the collection, researchers “have the chance to compare their Jewish family histories against the collections of FamilySearch, giving families more opportunities to expand, preserve, and share them,” said Todd Knowles, a Jewish genealogy specialist who founded the database.

“So many of our ancestors left their native lands for new homes. The [entries from the] diaspora (Jewish communities outside Israel) are now in six different searchable databases in the Knowles Collection. These collections show how universal our families are,” Knowles said in a statement.