Back in August 2018, I wrote a post about the strong connection between the Italians of the town of Cento, Italy and the Plymouth Cordage Company in From Cento to America. At that time, I mentioned a web site created by the Archivio di Storico di Cento (the historical archives of Cento) that would be launching in the near future to share stories of those who left Cento for other countries around the world. That day has arrived. Continue reading Cento emigration site launches
Category Archives: News
ICYMI: Grants for New England historians
[Author’s note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 17 October 2014. NERFC continues to add members and to increase the number of fellowships granted, so I urge doctoral candidates and freelance scholars to consider applying for one in the 2019–2020 cycle. Completed applications are due at midnight on Friday, 1 February 2019.]
I will be out of the office today, attending a planning meeting for the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC) at the John Hay Library in Providence. The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is a member of the consortium, a group made up of New England state and local historical societies, university and college libraries (Harvard, Smith, Trinity, and Brown), and museums (Historic Deerfield and Mystic Seaport). What links the membership together, for the purpose of providing $5,000 research fellowships, is a shared interest in making their large collections available for use by historical researchers. Continue reading ICYMI: Grants for New England historians
Vita Brevis turns five
When I became Editor-in-Chief at NEHGS in June 2013, one of the new initiatives Ryan Woods and I discussed was a blog for the Society. Current and former colleagues worked with me to establish the blog’s purpose and name, and – in time – got me set up on WordPress. (Two years later, when I was on a sabbatical, three current and former colleagues managed the blog in my absence.) So Vita Brevis has been a cooperative venture from the beginning, relying on the energy and commitment of the NEHGS staff and some dedicated outside contributors to produce fresh content. Continue reading Vita Brevis turns five
2018: the year in review
As we begin the countdown for 2019 – and look forward to the blog’s fifth anniversary in January – I have selected some posts from the first half of 2018 to showcase the range of subjects covered in Vita Brevis during the last year.
Alicia Crane Williams started the year with a series of posts on establishing criteria for what constitutes an “excellent” genealogy, as distinguished from a “good” (or a “poor”) one:
A “scoring” system for genealogies would be interesting. If, for example, we had ten categories on which to judge a genealogical source, and each category had a potential ten points maximum, the “perfect” score would be 100. Of course, this would all be subjective, but it would give us a way to group works for comparison (top 10%, bottom 50% etc.). Continue reading 2018: the year in review
The fabric is all
It has been a while since I’ve written an installment about the Rev. Thomas Cary’s diary. Indeed, it has been a while since I’ve written a post about anything, since I’ve been on a five-week trip with my husband along the East Coast as part of his sabbatical. Now I’m back and have loads of great new stuff to share!
The first is my pilgrimage to the Chelsea, Massachusetts, house that Thomas wrote of staying in regularly sometime after his mother’s death. Continue reading The fabric is all
Sitting pretty
Sitting in an estate of 10,000 acres, Castle Howard is generally considered the finest private residence in Yorkshire and the first great British house of the eighteenth century. Built to the designs of Sir John Vanbrugh, one of England’s greatest architects, for Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, the house cost the immense sum of £78,000 (approximately £154 million in inflation-adjusted values) and is noted for its great dome, the first on a private house in Britain. Continue reading Sitting pretty
History repeats
Between 1919 and 2003, a Boston loss in the fall classic of the World Series was, sadly, a familiar occurrence. In the decades before 1919, things were different. The Boston Americans rallied to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series in 1903. During the second decade of the twentieth century, the Red Sox were alive and well with pitching, fielding, and batting as they won the 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918 World Series. This month, one hundred and two years of history repeat. In the 2018 World Series, the Boston Red Sox are once more playing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Continue reading History repeats
Noble contributions
The Society’s Treat Rotunda was the setting Saturday for Gary Boyd Roberts’s seminar marking the publication of his new book, The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Québec, or the United States. More than thirty participants thronged the room to hear Gary’s reflections on new scholarship on Americans of royal descent; for the first time in the series, this volume also includes information on the royal lines of French-Canadians. The day concluded with a round table session featuring some of the scholars with whom Gary has collaborated in amassing his growing collection of notable Americans of royal descent. Continue reading Noble contributions
Housekeeping
Beginning this past Monday, and for at least the next few weeks, Vita Brevis will be running three posts per work week instead of the usual five. The idea is to mark the summer, when many of the NEHGS staff contributors (and Vita Brevis readers) are on holiday, but it also reflects the reality that with one employee to edit – and, often, write – posts, Vita Brevis is a demanding publication. (Yes, even with just one post a day!)
Do the blog’s readers feel strongly about the dependable frequency of the usual publishing schedule? Or will they find that three posts per week, reliably published on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, provide enough new content to keep them coming back to the blog?
Please let me know in the comments.
ETA: It seems that the consensus is for three posts per week during the summer, and perhaps even going forward. Many thanks for weighing in!
Misconceptions of an American
People always ask: What ethnicity are you? This is a difficult question for genealogists, as we can get quite detailed with our answers: “Well, on my mother’s maternal line we have Irish from County Leitrim and Monaghan, on my mother’s paternal line we have Italians and Irish, and my paternal line…” Well, you get the drift.
And while I’ve researched Italians, Germans, Irish, and Norwegians in my own ancestry, I’ve identified most with the Irish, given my closeness with my (likely mostly Irish) grandmother. Because of this, I’ve always thought that I knew something about the Irish, their culture, and their history. However, after two weeks in Ireland, and several guided bus tours, I found that of what I thought I knew, I actually knew very little. Here are some of the most embarrassing revelations: Continue reading Misconceptions of an American