I recently watched comedian Dave Chappelle's powerful Netflix special 8:46, remarking on the death of George..

I have agonized over what I would say in a blog post that would speak to the gravity of where our nation is today. I..

In January 2019, Vita Brevis marked its fifth anniversary with a series of posts, among them one on the blog “By the numbers.” After listing a number of statistics about the blog to that point, I made the following comments:

[But] Vita Brevis is more than the numbers,..

The birth of the newest member of the British royal family affords the chance to review all of young Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’s..

In my very first post for Vita Brevis, I mentioned that I’d learned a wonderful tip from NEHGS staff: many..

“You know, there is a shortage of beautiful, old theaters left in this country and this is one of them…” – Daryl Hall

At some point during the first decade of 2000s, I went to see Hall and Oates at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. They were on a tour to promote a..

I truly went down a rabbit hole recently, and all the credit goes to NEHGS’s Chief Genealogist, David..

As we begin the countdown for 2019 – and look forward to the blog’s fifth anniversary in January – I have selected some posts from the first half of 2018 to showcase the range of subjects covered in Vita Brevis during the last year.

Alicia Crane Williams started the..

In my post earlier this year, regarding preliminary research into the future Duchess of Sussex's matrilineal ancestry, I indicated that I had ordered several additional twentieth-century records that might..

With Mother’s Day last Sunday and the wedding tomorrow of Miss Meghan Markle and Prince Harry of Wales, I thought I would write a post on some of her maternal ancestors. Often on Mother’s Day, genealogists consider their matrilineal..