As researchers, we all hit brick walls when doing genealogy. In my search, there’s a part of my family that just doesn’t want to be found! It can be very discouraging – and, if you’re like me, you become obsessed with uncovering the hidden family..
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[Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 6 January 2016.]
Coming from a family of active amateur photographers, the (still) new digital age of photography has significantly changed the way I look at and..
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I just spent a nice afternoon with Tom, a fellow Alden descendant and historian, talking about the Alden legacy. He is gathering information on what he’s calling his “Aldens-engaging-with-Aldenness” project that may become a book.
He wanted to know how I was first..
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My squirrel bins, those containers of Distractions of All Things Family, frequently offer up mysteries, usually in the form of memorabilia that make me wonder why they were kept, and why I have them.
The small, 2.5” brass-toned badge marked Augusta Emergency Unit 83 is..
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As the White Rabbit said in Alice in Wonderland, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” We’ve all been there. The good news is that two new Early New England Families Study Project sketches are being posted to Americanancestors.org this week: John Hollister of..
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In the summer of 1970 I was witness to a ritual that had eluded parts of my family for more than one hundred years. This ritual was the graveside service for my great-grandmother Mary..
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In 2010 I visited the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. An exhibit that caught my eye was called Within these Walls, whichtold the stories of five families who lived in a house in Ipswich, Massachusetts for more than..
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The beginning of summer and the influx of tourists to the city of Boston has me thinking about a fun activity I did last year: a historic tavern tour. This was an entertaining group outing where we went on a historical tour of the city, all the while stopping at..
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While I have written about reported birthdates ranging over several years, something else that happens from time to time is the reporting of death dates, especially gravestones, being off by a few years. Sometimes, when a gravestone date..
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