I was recently reminded of just how small a town Hollywood is as I wrote up some notes on two photos featuring a (now) little-known actress named Kathryn Crawford. Born Kathryn..
Continue reading“Some secrets never leave us alone…” – Diane Capri
In my father’s house, there was a subject we were forbidden to speak of. This was the subject of my grandmother’s adoption and her biological mother.[i] Under pain of reprisal, we were told..
Continue reading →I did not learn to spell properly until I learned to type at the Katharine Gibbs School. This may have had something to do with my less-than-perfect handwriting. Seeing a word in type instead of scribble helps me spot the errors.
In genealogy, of course, we run into..
Continue reading →My mother, in the process of reorganizing her office, recently gave me a stack of family pictures and documents. I had already seen many of these photos of her parents and grandparents, but there was one that was unfamiliar and amazing: a large photo of my..
Continue reading →A few years ago, when I first began to make quiet rumblings about selling My Old House and moving closer to my son, most people reacted with horror, surprise, and objections: “You wouldn’t really!” “Would you really sell it?” “What would your father, mother,..
Continue reading →61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 8 January 1865:..
Continue reading →“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” – George Eliot
My love of family history came from my grandmother. Growing up, I recall asking a lot of genealogical questions that most of my family couldn’t even begin to answer – except, of course, for..
Continue reading →[Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 2 February 2016.]
From tracing free people of color in New England to identifying former slaves in the deep south, NEHGS can help you tell your family..
Continue reading →I think I survived my first foray into online teaching Wednesday night when I gave my lecture on “Working in and Understanding Original Records” as the third presentation in the NEHGS Online Course “Researching New England,” a fee-based program open to NEHGS members.[1]
Continue reading →This July marks the 250th birthday of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States and an original member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Born on 11 July 1767 in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams was a passionate orator and ardent..
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