Vita Brevis

1897 map of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Matthews-Northrup Company (via Wikimedia Commons)

One “employment perk” at American Ancestors is a complementary consultation with one of our genealogists, and every now and then I get paired with a colleague for such..

21 Chestnut Avenue, Boston, in 2024

Our neighbors affect us in direct and indirect ways. Whether you’ve only ever lived in single-family homes or you have experience residing in multi-family dwellings, you can likely remember your neighbors and the ways you impacted..

Postcard of the S.S. Romanic, created between 1903 and 1911

If you’re old enough to remember the popular ABC TV series The Love Boat which aired during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, you will no doubt still be able to hear in your mind its melodic opening theme song (“..

Cover of Bible photographed by Carol Kimball Stahl

Frank Caleb Stowell’s American craftsman home in Medford, Massachusetts, circa 1911-1920

In September, I had the distinct honour and privilege of serving as Patron of the Patrons Speech at the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, the first such congress hosted in the United States of America. The congress takes place..

Mural in Oswego, Kansas, depicting the Osage village of White Hair circa 1841 (via Wikimedia Commons)

At the turn of the twentieth century, Mary True Randall set up a photography studio with a dark room in her father’s house opposite Pittsford, Vermont’s Village Green. For almost 20 years, her camera captured children in formal poses and at play, quaint scenes of rural..

1863 print depicting American artist Washington Allston

I have lived in Allston, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, for about three years. For most of that time, I never gave the area’s name much thought. I assumed that it was either the name of a town back in..

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a member of the third generation of Anoa’i family wrestlers, at WWE Wrestlemania 28 in 2012

I am about to share a secret that few, if any of my fellow researchers at American Ancestors know about me: I love professional wrestling. I was..