Thirteen Steps to Your Jewish Roots
		1.	Begin gathering information.
		2.	Set research goals.
		3.	Involve family members and interview them.
		4.	Document what you know.
		5.	Become familiar with research sources and Jewish genealogical organizations.
		6.	Research family surnames and personal names.
		7.	Collect and preserve family documents.
		8.	Examine family photos and heirlooms.
		9.	Preserve your research, photos, and heirlooms.
		10.	Compile historical information about your family’s place of origin.
		11.	Talk to people.
		12.	Distribute your information to family members and Jewish family tree archives.
		13.	Create genealogical heirlooms for future generations.

Step One — Begin gathering information.

The first thing to do is to write down everything you know about your family.  Use four separate pieces of paper — one for each of your grandparents — and use these pages to organize your information.  Chat informally with close relatives to fill in some of the gaps.

Step Two — Set research goals.

In order to set your research goals, you need to get a clear picture of what you know and what you need to know.  Follow these simple steps:

1. Write down everything you know on four pieces of paper.  This will create a visual image of the information you’ve collected.  When you feel that you’ve gotten as much information as you can through informal conversations and you’ve written it all down, spread the four sheets of paper out in front of you.  The amount of research that needs to be done will be very clear for each of the four branches.  The sheet with the least amount of information will probably be the most difficult to research.  The sheet with the most amount of information will give you a fairly complete mult-generational tree.
   
2. Using the information that you have on each page, create a pedigree chart.  A pedigree chart contains information about your directly related ancestors — parents, grandparents, great grandparents, but doesn’t show other relatives like siblings or cousins or your own children.  A pedigree chart will help you keep track of your research as you progress by reminding you which relationship line you’re working on and who’s related to whom.
   
3. Create a family tree for each of the four branches of your family based on the oldest relative for whom you have information.
   
4. Decide which branch to begin with based on how easy you feel it will be to get information about that side of your family.  This will depend on many different factors including the number of older living relatives, where they live and your access to them, the availability of documents and the level of your own motivation to pursue a particular family line.  In general, it’s best to begin with the situation that is easiest to research so that you don’t run into major research problems before you’ve had a chance to build your research skills and experience.

Step Three — Involve family members and interview them.

Don’t assume that because you tell your family members that you’re doing research on your family tree that they’ll immediately help you. For one thing, although this is important to you, it may not be important to them.  Also, this is your project; it’s top of mind for you, but they have other things to be concerned about. It’s not that they intend to be unhelpful; it just isn’t their project. Individual family members may also have private reasons for wanting to conceal parts of their own family history. It’s important to remember that your research may stimulate conflicts or disturbing feelings of which you may be unaware for other family members.

      For these reasons, a genealogist should be respectful of family members’ hesitation in offering information, if such a situation should present itself.  Going slowly and being welcoming when inviting family members to become involved in your genealogical research will increase your family’s willingness to cooperate with you.

      Once you have decided which line of your family tree you’re going to research, you’ll want to conduct in depth interviews with family members.  Careful planning of these interviews will help guarantee your success.  It’s also very important to follow up these interviews, as details may be remembered days, or even weeks after your initial meeting.

Step Four — Document what you know.

Writing down what you discover about your family is vital for several reasons.  If you don’t commit your ideas and notes to paper, you may forget the information.  Also, at some time, another family member may want to continue the research. It will be helpful for you to be able to pass along what you’ve discovered.  Finally, remember that the reason that you’re doing this research is that no one else in your family — that you know of — has done this before.  Keeping written records will ensure that future generations will have the benefit of your hard word.

Step Five — Become familiar with research sources and Jewish genealogical organizations.

Your family will form your first source of information about your family tree, but sooner or later you will need to explore archives and other research depositories.  For this reason, it will be helpful for you to search out the genealogy research sources in your area and those that exist on a national level.  These include municipal archives for life cycle records, the nearest Family History Center; the National Archives Research Administration; Jewish Gen. the largest Jewish genealogy research hub on the Internet; Avotaynu, the premier publisher of Jewish genealogy research materials; and your local Jewish Genealogy Society.

      In addition, there are many specialized groups that can aid the Jewish genealogist in his or her research.  Landsmanshaften groups are organizations founded to help people from a particular town or region.  Although many of these are now no longer active, many of these organizations provided burial sites for their members.  Finding a landsmanshaften organization for a family member can lead to finding other family members.

      Many areas, both in the United States and abroad, now have Jewish heritage societies.  These societies often house local archives and books that can be of help.  There are also a number of Jewish archives that store Jewish family trees.  Becoming familiar with these resources will help you expand your research.

Step Six — Research family surnames and personal names.

Family surnames and personal names offer many clues about your family’s development and history.  Documenting these names can provide invaluable clues.  It can be especially important to create a directory of family Hebrew and Yiddish names.  Since these names are often passed down in a family, knowledge of the names used in the last few generations can help you uncover relatives even further back.  In addition, by creating such a directory, you will be preserving an important part of your family’s history.

      Sometimes, family names can prod one’s memory about important genealogical information.  For example, when I was doing some research on my father’s matrilineal line, no one could remember his maternal grandmother’s name.  Then I remembered that one of my Hebrew names, Leah, came from my paternal grandmother and I recalled that I had been told that her name was Lina.  I remembered that my father told me that his mother’s mother lived with them when he was growing up.  Although I didn’t know when Lina died, this information, added to the fact that I was named after her, helped me narrow the time band for the purpose of researching her date of death.

Step Seven — Collect and preserve family documents.

Collecting and preserving family documents is an excellent way to extend your research and also preserve information for future generations.  Many families retain important documents like naturalization papers, birth certificates and marriage certificates.  Because these documents usually include information about more than one generation of a family, getting access to these papers and preserving them is extremely important if you want to extend your research past the immediate living generations of your family.

      Even if these records are not in your possession, there are many different ways to find them and get copies.  Learning how to do this will be an important aspect of your development as a Jewish genealogist.

Step Eight — Examine family photos and heirlooms.

Family photographs and heirlooms can provide important clues about your family’s history.  For example, the dress of family members can help to date a photograph.  Sometimes postcards sent by family members can give clues about a family’s migration.  In researching my mother’s photographs, we found a postcard with Russian writing on the back.  When we had it translated, it turned out that the photograph was from one of my grandmother’s sisters who had moved from Kiev to Moscow and lived there during the 1930s.  Until I found this photograph, I was unaware that any of my grandmother’s family had left the Ukraine.  It was an important clue.

      Family heirlooms can also provide information about family members.  A wimple, which is a Torah binder made from a baby’s swaddling blanket, may contain the birth date and name of a child.  A kiddush cup given as a wedding gift may have the name of the bride and groom, as well as their wedding date, engraved on it.  Even Aunt Fanny’s candlesticks, received as a wedding present and brought from the old country, may contain a date of manufacture or origin that can help in expanding your knowledge of your family’s history.  For this reason, it’s very important to ask family members about photographs and heirlooms retained in the family, and to look at them yourself.

Step Nine — Preserve your research, photos, and heirlooms.

It’s not enough to collect documents, photographs, and heirlooms.  In order to make sure that future generations will be able to appreciate their worth, it’s vital to catalogue, label and preserve them.  It’s also important to make sure that they will be passed on, after your death, to someone in the family who will take the responsibility of caring for them and making them accessible to future family genealogists.

Step Ten — Compile historical information about your family’s place of origin.

Learning about the history of your family’s place of origin can help you find clues about your heritage.  I was recently on a plane with a man who told me that it had been suggested to him that he had Jewish ancestry.  Since his father was a Baptist minister, he didn’t see how this could be.  We began to talk and I asked him where his family originally came from.  It turned out that one set of grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Germany right before World War II.  In addition, these relatives had personal names and surnames that suggested some Jewish ancestry.  Since many of the Germans who immigrated to the United States in the 1930s were Jewish, I suggested that he begin to research his family background.

      He was surprised to think that he might actually have Jewish ancestry.  He asked, “Did Jews who came from Germany hide their Jewish background?”  I explained that, while this was not usual, there were many who did.  The most famous instance of a Jewish family that changed its religion in America is the family of Secretary of State Madelyn Albright.  Although she grew up as an Episcopalian, her Jewish grandparents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust.  This was a situation of which she had been unaware until very recently.

      Another possibility is that one of this man’s grandparents or great grandparents had been Jewish. In Nazi Germany, even partial Jewish identity was a ticket to the gas chambers. This man was unaware of the Jewish history attached to the time during which his family immigrated to the United States. Learning just a few facts encouraged him to begin his own genealogical research.

Step Eleven —Talk to people.

The Jewish world is very small.  Talking to other Jews you meet about your family research is not the most “scientific” method.  However, it is easy to do and can sometimes lead to good results.  Recently I was on a plane and fell into conversation with a young Jewish man from Omaha.  Since I have relatives in Omaha, I asked if he knew them.  It turned out that not only did he know them, but that he and I were distantly related, through a family connection of which I had been previously unaware.

Step Twelve — Distribute your information to family members and Jewish family tree archives.

In order to make sure that your work will be available to future genealogists, it’s very important to make the tree available to other family members.  In addition, your completed tree should be stored with all appropriate Jewish archives.

Step Thirteen — Create genealogical heirlooms for future generations.

You are a link in the chain of your family.  As you become more involved in the study of your ancestors, you may find the feeling of being a link between the past and the future will grow stronger.  As a link, you can do many things to facilitate the work of future family genealogists.  You may want to create many different genealogical heirlooms for life cycle events.  You can make sure that your own family documents are preserved and stored in a place that will make them easily available to your descendents.  By doing these things, you will not only be linking the past to the future, but you will be sending a message to descendents you may never meet about your own life and times.

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