Vita Brevis

The Isle of Iona, looking upon highland cows, ruins of an old structure, and the mountains of the Isle of Mull across the bay.

Thanks in large part to the legacy he built during his lifetime, few people remain unaware of the importance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the Civil Rights Movement. His life and contributions are commemorated each year on the third Monday of January. Far fewer..

Death records can be treasure troves, especially if the deceased is someone about whom we have little information. Official death records vary widely in their details, but often provide names of parents, spouses, and/or other family members who may be informants; dates..

I recently came across an older—but nonetheless fascinating—article about German surnames that paired nicely with my past article on Tools for German Origins. The article, Jürgen Eichhoff's "Types of German Surname Changes in America," was originally published in The..

As the holidays come and go, I often find myself reflecting on the family members who have shaped my life and the stories that connect generations. Of course, I think of my mother, but also of my maternal grandmother, Marylynn Moore Hickey. My grandmother was an..

My great-grandfather, George Arthur Walsh (1873-1943), was particularly quiet about his family. When he died, my grandfather was just seven, and it was assumed he had no living relatives. However, when I began my genealogical research, I discovered that he was the..

A recent episode of Jeopardy! had one of the greatest instances of coincidence in the Final Jeopardy clue, where the answer was: In 1896, the Vassar-educated wife of this man wrote, “thousands of dollars may be paid for a copy of Shakespeare.” Emily Croke was the only..

The New York Times Magazine recently published a story on the ancestry of the new Pope. The article was by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in collaboration with American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami. I was one of the researchers tasked with working on some of..

If you are ever in Essex County, Massachusetts, there is an interesting cemetery within the Maudslay State Park in Newburyport. It is a pet cemetery and features seven gravestones of beloved pets that once belonged to the wealthy Moseley family. 

A few years before the death of my father, Frank Dwyer, in 2015, he described a harrowing incident he witnessed outside his home during the early days of World War II. Dad grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, on a property his Cassidy grandparents, Irish immigrants..