For research on Jewish ancestry, you need to go to the website http://www.jewishgen.org. This website is packed with information, databases, talk lists, and even a family tree of Jewish people that can be searched once you join. It's free to join. The databases are incredible. The help you can receive on the listserves is wonderful. Aside from this website, most of us with Jewish roots will trace our way back to Eastern Europe at one point. Finding information on families who lived there prior to 1939 is difficult. Many records were destroyed and many localities will not be very helpful. However, there is hope. You can get birth, marriage, and death records from the LDS microfilms. Many towns have had their record books microfilmed. You will need to learn key phrases in the language of that country.

Be aware that borders changed often in Eastern Europe. For example, Poland did not exist as a nation for about 100 years. Polish records from the 1880's may be in Russian Cyrillic. You will need to know what your surname would look like in those records. Cyrillic is not Latin based. There are several books that you should have if you are researching Jewish genealogy. Both are by Gary Mokotoff, an authority on Jewish genealogy and Holocaust research. The first book is "Where Once We Walked." This is a guide to the cities and shtetls that were destroyed in the holocaust. This book gives the most common names as well as alternate names for these cities and also lists the Jewish population prior to WWII. The second book is "How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of The Holocaust." This book is invaluable to anyone doing Holocaust research. You can also get more information at Avotaynu's Website http://www.avotaynu.com.