Background

The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Mahmut II (1808-1839) was a time of foundational changes as the Sultan sought to modernize his empire. The Auspicious Incident of 1826 where the Sultan disbanded the Janissary Corps kicked off a series of foundational reforms that would become the Tanzimat (“Reorganization”). After disbanding the Jannisary Corps, the Sultan wanted a new formalized way to monitor the population in line with Europe for drafting soldiers and taxing the draft-exempt population (ahl al-kitab, dhimmi, the People of the Book, Jews and Christians). This census was intended to act as a register that would be periodically added to as males were born, moved away, or died and both act for military and tax purposes. These censuses were exclusively males as daughters and wives were not recorded until much later in the Hamidian period (1876-1909).

The first real census of the Ottoman Empire was completed in 1247 AH (11 June 1831-20 May 1832 CE). It mainly covered the heartland of the Empire and the format of them was not standardized beyond recording tax status, given name, father’s name (for the head of household or non-sons in the household), and age. Some of the census takers recorded occupations and other comments. Often times, additions as well as indications of whether the individual had died or moved away can also be found in different hands along with the date of registration.

In the Ottoman Empire, officially, there were no surnames even though much of the Jewish community and many of Christian communities of the Empire had stable surnames. The lack of surnames on most documents until much later in the 19th century is a consequence of this general rule, though, it was not always followed. 

While researching in the Ottoman Archives in 2022, Associate Director of the Sephardic Research Division Michael Waas discovered that for Izmir, there are three separate copies of this first census register. Two of them survive in full and appear to be copies of one another to some degree. There are over 3000 men and boys recorded in this first census. There are no surnames in it, though, it is possible to deduce the surnames based on other information. The third register, remarkably, the Ottoman official recorded the surnames. All of the names are recorded in Ottoman Turkish.

This register is fragmented and appears to be about one-third of the original register. More than 230 unique surnames were able to be extracted.

Special thanks to Dr. Abraham Marcus for his advisement and assistance with translating Ottoman Turkish for this project and to Dr. Dov Cohen for his expertise on the genealogy and history of the Izmir Jewish community and collaborating on research.

Searching the Database

This database can be searched via the JewishGen Turkey Database or the JewishGen Unified Search