Vita Brevis

Early in 1836, nearly two hundred American men lost their lives defending the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, over the course of a thirteen-day siege. While this event is largely viewed through the lens of Texas and southern American history, several men from New England..

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Recently, the New England Historic Genealogical Society participated in “Free Fun Friday,” a yearly summer event sponsored by the Highland Street Foundation for no-cost admission to cultural..

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I have been diddling with the sketch for Samuel Green of Boston for over a year and I’m still confused. Samuel² Green, son of Bartholomew¹ Green, was of the famous family of printers who operated the only printing press in the English colonies until 1665, and over..

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[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, began here.]

In May 1860, Regina Shober Gray [1] was visiting her family in Philadelphia.

245 South Eighteenth Street, Wednesday,..

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[Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 2 July 2015.]

Census records, passport applications, draft cards: many people are familiar with these resources because of their..

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Regina Shober Gray [1] was an energetic and well-educated woman of her time. Her diary abounds with visits to the theater and to commercial art galleries (the precursors of museums), so I..Continue reading →

One of the trends in my ancestry is the curious one whereby, when given the choice between staying in a locale or moving on, my nineteenth-century forebears often remained behind as other..

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Eight new Early New England Families Study Project sketches have now been posted on Americanancestors.org: James Badcock of Portsmouth/Westerly, Rhode Island, and Hugh Clark of Watertown/Roxbury, Jonas Clark of Cambridge, Thomas Dyer of Weymouth, John Fairbanks of..

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For the last few months I have been working with Judi Garner of the Jewish Heritage Center, here at NEHGS, on an exhibit of twentieth-century Jewish photographers and their subjects, and we are finally finished. The photos are framed and hung; the labels have been..

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When I was writing my new book, The Stranger in My Genes – about the DNA test I took that shockingly suggested my father wasn't really my father – I thought my story was unusual, if not unique. Boy, was I wrong.

After the ebook version was released on August 23, I..

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