My family knows very little about where we came from – parents never kept in touch with rest of family and everyone else in the family either is dead or whoever is alive never cared to find out any details from their parents/grandparents.
What’s the best way to go about researching a family tree?
the “best way” is probably to hire someone (depending how you define “best”)
A great starting point is Jewishgen .com
I was able to put together a family tree going back 8 generations. However, Ihave an unusual last name which made it easier since it limited the number of hits to sift through. If you have a name like Stern you will need more starting information, as obviously the number of Sterns you will uncover will be overwhelming