The history of the Rothschild family began in the Frankfurt ghetto; it was there that Meyer Amschel was born, in 1743 or 1744, there that he brought up his family, and there in the Judengasse (though by then the ghetto had been dissolved) that he died in 1812. In the succeeding centuries the family has established itself and its banking and financial enterprises widely throughout the world. To mark the 250-year connection the Jewish Museum Frankfurt mounted the exhibition `The Rothschilds: A European Family' as part of the city's 1200th anniversary celebrations. This catalogue of the exhibition, a companion as much as a catalogue of objects, follows the principal themes of the family's history, recorded in a wide-ranging display of objects, documents and photographs.