Palestine Colonial Records

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Colonial Records

Ottoman Empire Colonization (1516-1832)

The Ottoman Turks captured Mamluk Palestine and Syria in 1516. Ottoman rule of the country lasted without interruption for three centuries, until its conquest by Muhammad Ali's Egypt in 1832. Eight years later, the United Kingdom intervened and returned control to the Ottomans in return for extraterritorial rights for Europeans living in Palestine.

Record collection	Years covered	Record type	Language	Who is in the records
Nüfus Registers	1883-1917	Census & population registers	Ottoman Turkish	These Ottoman census registers were taken in 10 districts in what is now Palestine/Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, and many individuals recorded in the registers were born elsewhere in the Middle East. For more information, see FamilySearch Catalog, State of Palestine Census, and Palestine, Ottoman Census and Population Registers. Names are currently searchable only in Arabic and dates are displayed using the Ottoman Rumi calendar. The Turkish website Türk Tarih Kurumu can be used to convert dates from the Rumi to the Gregorian calendar.

British Colonization 1917-1948)

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which the British government issued during World War I, declared that Great Britain favored the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The British captured Jerusalem from the Ottomans a month later. Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine on 25 April 1920 at the San Remo Conference, with the League of Nations formally adopting the Mandate in 1922. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine, and in 1947 the British Government announced its intention to terminate the Mandate.

Record collection	Years covered	Record type	Language	Who is in the records