My grandfather’s box of family papers continues to yield treasures – and some fresh mysteries. Among the former (and the latter) are a pair of small leather traveling photo frames: one, the larger, is maroon and holds a photograph of a middle-aged woman; the other..

For the past two weeks, many NEHGS staff members celebrated birthdays, bringing to mind my birthday celebration last year. At the restaurant, our waiter announced my birthday to..

My ancestry is replete with American patriots, soldiers – veterans. From Anthony Morse Jr., a lieutenant in the militia at Newbury, Massachusetts, in the 1660s, to Samuel Morse, a soldier in the War of 1812; from Thomas Morse, a patriot in the American Revolution, to..

That pile of photocopied original documents you have sitting on your table looks especially mountainous when you start compiling genealogical text. How much of it needs to be included? How should it be presented? What is important and what is not?

Before you can..

History is full of portentous moments – in retrospect. America, 1860: To us, today, it is axiomatic to say that, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the nation..

It’s funny how family stories take shape. The story of my great-great-grandfather’s business failure during the Crash of 1873, for instance: I had assumed (based on what information?) that the family at once retrenched, leaving their house on Fifth Avenue in a genteel..

In my last Vita Brevis post, I wrote about some of the best sources to help identify your Loyalist ancestors. But before the Loyalists fled to Canada after the American Revolution, another important group settled Maritime Canada:..

As many genealogical researchers know, it is hardly unusual to have a person listed as born in one state on a census record, then ten years..

This is part one of a series on digitizing our special collections.

At NEHGS, the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections are a..

Just as Morris Gray seems to have been a model child, so Regina Shober Gray’s only daughter, Mary (1848–1923), appears to advantage in her mother’s diary. Inclined..