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My mother is a sephardic jew from Tunisia, my father is non jewish ( or so I thought) from Chile. I already know my genealogy pretty far back from my mom so its my paternal grandma I am mostly interested in.

There is a rumor my paternal grandma was adopted. She is very light stereotypically jewish not chilean looking at all. Her maiden name was also a very common sephardic name,  bejar(behar). Her family had very jewish esque traditions. Recititations of psalm 23 on Friday night along with candle lighting. Their is also a notable absence of baptismal records with my grandma being the first to be Baptised in the family. In addition my dads great uncle always said the family were jews from Spain.

I had always ignored genealogy in general but since some personal shifts in my relationship to Judaism I have been more interested. How do I empirically research my families history? I obviously want to find something out that may not be true. What are some good resources for chile and spain? In addition what are possible family histories, I am extremely skeptical anybody could preserve any religious traditions for 400 years of converting to Christianity. Any history of sephardim in chile from 1800s?