Vita Brevis

In case you missed Part I of our readers’ family ghost stories: last week I talked about the history of ghost stories in the United States, and introduced you to some of the stranger spirits..

Have you ever wondered if a favorite song of yours had a basis in fact?

In the song “The Green Fields of France,” the narrator reflects upon the grave of Willie McBride, a young man who died as a soldier in World War I. In one verse, he asks Willie:

Or are you a..

Thank you to everyone who answered our call for submissions! I had so much fun going through the treasure trove of strange, poignant, and even funny..

Plenty of people own Shaker furniture or have heard of Shaker-style craftsmanship, but it's less common to find someone with Shaker ancestry. There’s good reason for that: the Shakers, or the United Society of..

Even the smallest bit of nostalgia can set me off down a new genealogical rabbit hole. The other day, when I heard Cass Elliot singing Make Your Own Kind of Music¹ in a car commercial on television, I knew right away that I was in trouble. Wouldn’t it be incredible to..

A friend relayed to me this episode: an older individual was leaving a research facility when security, per policy, asked to inspect their bag. The individual declared to my friend working at the reception desk: “I find it insulting that security asked to check my bag,..

I recently went searching through newspaper records for information about the family of John Doane of Eastham for the next Early New England Families (ENEF) sketch. Newspaper resources about 17^th- and 18^th-century families are rare, but do exist for larger cities such..

Anyone who lived in Fall River, Massachusetts more than fifty years ago would..

Are there ghosts in your family's stories? Do you have a relative who enjoys telling a tale of the unexplained, an ancestral home that seems to hold some trace of the..

Following the example of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, the new monarch of the United Kingdom has officially..