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As we read the Torah, we are given quite a clear record of the births and deaths of the Jewish people's ancestors. Thousands of years later, there is little doubt who begat whom.

Our own family trees, however, are rarely that clear.

That's why it's ironic that one of the best tools to investigate our history research is one of the most modern — the Internet. With a bit of research and luck, you may be able to shed new light on your family history.

Following are some of the best Web sites to start the hunt for your Jewish past.

JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy is actually many sites in one. You can find it at www.jewishgen.org In addition to its own extensive resources, JewishGen also hosts many other related genealogical Web sites. You can begin your travels at the Frequently Asked Questions area of the site: www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/faq.html

This massive document will not only give you an overview of JewishGen, but will tell you how to get started in Jewish genealogy. There's advice about everything from finding ocean liner passenger lists going back to 1800, to locating a local Jewish genealogy society. There are even recommendations for the best genealogical software.

When you visit the JewishGen Family Finder, you can hunt for your family name, or your ancestral town, from a database of over a quarter of a million entries, at www.jewishgen.org/jgff/

This incredible database is the work of over 45,000 Jewish genealogists worldwide. It allows you to search for a name and will even forgive you if you are a bit fuzzy about the spelling. As with many other areas of JewishGen, you are invited to add your own information to the database.

Even if your genealogical search is very special, there is probably a special interest group (SIG) that is right for you. For example, there are SIGs devoted to Jews from specific countries and regions such as Germany (www.jewishgen.org/ GerSIG), Galicia (www.jewishgen.org/ Galicia) and one geared toward Sephardim (www.jewishgen.org/ SefardSIG).

One of the newest SIGs is a little different. The Rabbinic ancestry special interest group has just been established to act as a central clearinghouse for rabbinic genealogy, at www.jewishgen.org/Rabbinic

According to this site, as many as one in 50 Jews alive today has a rabbinic ancestry. Also, for most Ashkenazi Jews, surnames are a relatively recent invention — less than 200 years old. Rabbinical families seem to have been the exception to this rule. The use and adoption of surnames for these families dates back to as early as the 15th century, if not earlier, thus preceding all other family names by about 350 years.

There are some extremely helpful online tools that will help you in your hunt. At www.jewishgen.org/ jos the calendar conversion page calculates dates to and from Gregorian and Jewish calendars. If you need to know how far it is from Plonsk to Minsk, just plug the longitude and latitude into the distance calculator. (Answer: It's a distance of 94.5 kilometers.) And if you want to find out more about the family's shtetl, then just go to ShtetlSeeker -Town Search and visit www.jewishgen.org/ ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm

At some point in your travels, you will have questions about the best way to research your family's history. The JewishGen Discussion Group offers a moderated e-mail list and a newsgroup: www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen/DiscussionGroup.htm Plus there are specialized mailing lists for people with special interests such as Litvak, Denmark and South African lists at www.jewishgen.org/ listserv/sigs.htm

And because someone may have already asked and answered your question, you can check out the JewishGen Discussion Group Message Archives which go back to 1993.

Finally, look at the JewishGen Projects and Activities section, www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen/projects.htm The Holocaust Global Registry has been set up to help survivors who are looking for family members, and for child survivors who are searching for their identity. You will also find links to the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry, the Yizkor Book Project and a site called Genealogy by Genetics. By using bits of DNA (from a painless cheek scraping) they help "genealogists find lost relatives when the paper trail ends and the brick wall takes its place."

There is much more to JewishGen and that's why this is such an incredible resource. And like all family trees, the more you probe, the more surprises you are bound to find.