Vita Brevis

More than a decade ago I had the opportunity to edit Richard Evans’s account of the ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales. Looking now at the finished product gives me great pleasure: it seems to me both intrinsically interesting as an expansive view of one person’s..

Many of us cherish the notion that historical photographs capture a frozen moment in time. Upon more detailed examination, though, studio pictures sometimes possess more artifice and contrivance than would have been expected. Take, for instance, these paired images..

Several years ago my mother gave me a family picture that is unlike most family pictures; in fact, without the identifying information on the back, it doesn’t seem to be a family picture at all. Thank goodness for the label, which gives a ton of information, not only..

I recently read a book by Ellen Marie Wiseman entitled What She Left Behind. Among other themes in the book, it depicted the treatment of a woman who was committed to an asylum in early 1920 by her father. The main character was committed because she..

One of my more inscrutable brick walls isn’t made out of brick at all. Rather, it looks to be made of cheese. No, not cheddar, bleu, or provolone, nor is it built from anything lost in the Badger State. I guess if had to describe the wall – you know, to say what sort..

Sometimes it is best not to count things. I have just finished my spreadsheet listing all marriages in Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 that took place in or prior to 1643 for individuals who arrived in New England after 1640 (with a whole bunch whose date..

Beginning this past Monday, and for at least the next few weeks, Vita Brevis will be running three posts per work week instead of the usual five. The idea is to mark the summer, when many of the NEHGS staff contributors (and Vita Brevis readers) are on holiday, but it..

People always ask: What ethnicity are you? This is a difficult question for genealogists, as we can get quite detailed with our answers: “Well, on my mother’s maternal line we have Irish from County Leitrim and Monaghan, on my mother’s paternal line we have Italians..

I was recently on holiday in London and Prague, and in the latter city I had a rather serendipitous encounter, as it seemed – but perhaps was not! While touring the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle – an impressive..

[Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 23 January 2017.]

The Research Services team at NEHGS is occasionally approached..