have been deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives, including records of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the Beth Din, the federation of Synagogues and the United Synagogue. The collections contain only a small number of sources useful to those studying their Jewish Family History, particular sources are the records from the Jewish Temporary Shelter and those of the Jewish Free School which is said to have educated one third of all the Jewish community in London. The majority of records from the various Jewish Organisations are concerned with subject and policy decisions and most require written permission from the depositor before access can be granted. London local authorities Two very important series of records have been classified under the heading London Local Authorities. The first of these, are the records of the Boards of Guardians of the Poor Law Unions for London and Middlesex. Poor Law Unions were formed as a result of the new Poor Law amendment act of 1834, when neighbouring parishes joined together to pool their resources, each of these unions would be administered by a Board of Guardians. The records consist primarily of general minutes of the board, administrative records including details of staff, settlement examinations, orders of removal, workhouse and infirmary records and school records. The records are arranged by each individual board although the amount of surviving material varies from board to board. The majority of material is from the period 1850 to 1930. The other major collection in this series, are the records of the Middlesex Deeds Register. By the Middlesex Registry Act 1708 a registry was established for the registration of all deeds, conveyances, wills, encumbrances etc., affecting freehold land and leased land for periods of 21 years or more, within the ancient county of Middlesex. In 1862 the national land register was introduced on a voluntary basis. In 1899 it became compulsory for land in the new area of North London that was formally Middlesex to be registered nationally. This dramatically reduced the amount of entries to the Middlesex Deeds Register, though it continued to serve the outer part of Middlesex until 1938 when all land within Middlesex had to be registered through the national land register. Deeds and documents brought to the registry were copied onto pieces of parchment called memorials and then bound into large volumes or registers. The documents are