Vita Brevis

In a recent blog post on preparing a project for publication, Scott Steward targeted that essential shift in thinking that must occur as you translate your research project into a writing project. And he pointed out how important it is to write a table of contents . ...

I have access to every book, microfilm and manuscript in the NEHGS library, but because I don’t actually work in the building (I work from home, generally on a 3 pm to 3 am schedule), I have to rely on the staff at the library to make copies. Fortunately, with so many..

Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins with his contemplation of “two roads diverg[ing] in a yellow wood,” and his indecision about whether to follow one path or the other. In the end, the author chooses what he deems “the path less traveled by.” Yet..

In a few days, Vita Brevis will have published one hundred blog posts. Thinking back to about a year ago, when the subject of the blog was first broached, I can say that I only thought through the mechanics of preparing and posting the first half-dozen; everything..

Even as the Massachusetts Bay Company was establishing itself in New England in 1630, another London-based joint-stock company, the Providence Island Company, was beginning its settlement project on a small Caribbean island off the coast of Nicaragua. The Providence..

In my role as Technical Services Manager for the NEHGS library, one of my responsibilities is to develop and maintain the library collection. The library has a diverse collection of print and online books, microfilm, cd-roms, and databases to help with your..

Readers have asked for a more detailed inventory of the Early New England Families Study Project sketches. The following list includes all sketches that have been uploaded to the website:

The AJHS–NEA archives are filled with stories of individuals and families who have affected the Jewish communities of Greater Boston and New England. Eliot Snider is the focus of one  such collection.

Four years before Eliot was born, his father – Harry, a Jewish..

Patrilineage

One of my sisters recently asked me if we might be related to a friend of hers named Boucher, and I explained that we almost certainly were not, as the surname died out with our great-great-aunt Florence Estella Boucher..

Why most people went to Charlestown during the seventeenth century we can only guess. Individuals were usually far too occupied during preparation, emigration, and plantation to record their reasons for undertaking this life-threatening ordeal. We can only adduce..