Ancestry.com has an interesting database category called Immigration & Travel, which includes a variety of passenger list and passport application databases. I have used them over the years to track members of my family as they..

Over the last five months, Vita Brevis has featured a number of blog posts about the Great Migration Study Project and related subjects. Robert Charles Anderson, the project’s director, has written on the topic, as have ..

Last night I went to the monthly meeting of the Winthrop Improvement and Historical Association on the grounds of the Deane Winthrop House to hear John Winthrop Sears speak about his ancestral uncle. Deane² Winthrop..

William Boucher Jr. had children born over a period of forty years (1847–1887); his grandchildren were born between 1877 and 1925. Boucher’s..

My maternal grandmother kept stationery boxes stuffed with letters and calling cards from the guests at my parents’ wedding in 1959. It’s interesting to see who was invited, since my mother’s wedding album only hints at who was there. Among the RSVPs is one from my..

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..

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..

As I prepare for this week’s Writing and Publishing Seminar in Boston, I am reflecting on that challenging moment for genealogists when research gives way to writing. It’s important, at this stage, to begin thinking about the potential article or book as something..

My cousin Connie recently sent me a photo of a young woman and asked me if I thought it might show her grandmother (and my great-great-aunt) Constance Boucher Burch (1887–1977). I’m inclined to think it does, given the provenance as well as the (rather unscientific)..

A colleague and old friend delights in killing people off: that is, finding the death and burial information of ancestors and other family members. When we are content to list a relative as having been born and later married, with no end date or place in our..