Vita Brevis

My great-great-grandmother, Margaret Kenefick, was born in Boston on 11 February 1857, the daughter of Irish immigrants Thomas and Mary Kenefick. When I began searching for the family in Boston, I turned to the 1860 Census,..

“If any persons or persons within his Majesties Dominions of England and Wales, being married, or which hereafter shall marry, do at any time after the end of the session of this present Parliament,..

Ben-Hur:  A Tale of the Christ (1925) was one of the great spectacles of the silent period; it was also one of the first movies to be produced by the newly amalgamated Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer film corporation. The uncredited cast list reads like..

A frequent refrain here at Vita Brevis is that genealogists should consider not just their direct ancestral lines, with a glance at collaterals like siblings or..

The British constitutional historian Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) wrote that “When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let..

Proofreading

What can I say about a task that falls below cleaning toilets on my list of favorite things to do? However, mastering the discipline of proofreading is imperative. Your audience is counting on you to get it right, no excuses. It is also a Catch-22 – no..

The problem of identity theft is one which has increased significantly over the last several decades; for obvious reasons, it was quite rare in..

My cousin Neil recently shared some family albums with me: the oldest one belonged to his grandfather, Frederick Ayer (Jr.) (1888–1969), who kept it in 1905 and 1906. Over time, the images and the..

The announcement Tuesday of the (probable) identification of the remains of four men buried under the chancel of the first parish church at..

When I contemplated the subject of my first post, I decided that I should write about the person who sparked my genealogical interest in the first place: my paternal grandfather, Adrian Sidney Todd. Adrian died young, and I never had..