Genealogical clusters develop when offspring of families marry spouses who are related to them by blood, marriage, social position, or wealth—often continuing for generations of marriages.

I have written about clusters before , I often uncover them while researching..

I recently went searching through newspaper records for information about the family of John Doane of Eastham for the next Early New England Families (ENEF) sketch. Newspaper resources about 17^th- and 18^th-century families are rare, but do exist for larger cities such..

For some in Massachusetts, the mention of the years 1692 and 1693 still reminds us of a very dark and regrettable chapter in our past – a past that still is being written, analyzed, and..

There were three contemporary Isaac Joneses – all with wives named Mary, all living in Dorchester and Boston at the turn of the eighteenth century – whose records have been squashed together in earlier writings. The problem starts with the death record in Dorchester..

Working on the Early New England Families sketch for George Parkhurst of Watertown, I find myself deep in the middle of three marriages, a total of fourteen children, financial destitution, and return to England. If you are a descendant of George Parkhurst, you may not..

[Editor's note: To date, 995 blog posts in the category of "American History" have been published at Vita Brevis. Herewith the first, published 15 January 2014.]

I cannot imagine the faith that John Leverett and his wives, Hannah Hudson and Sarah Sedgwick, must have..

The most recent sketch posted for the Early New England Families Study Project is for George Blake of Gloucester and Boxford, Massachusetts, and his family.[1]

George Blake is another of those men who left little record. We do not know where he came from nor who his..

The reason I have not been active on Vita Brevis recently can be laid at the feet of the Phelps family of Salem. Five members of the family will “soon” be published together as the Phelps Cluster despite their complete refusal to cooperate. Here is a little of what I..

I prefer to work on the Early New England Families Study Project (ENEF) sketches by myself, surveying literature, digging into primary sources, organizing, and immersing myself in the subject, so that I do not have to deal with teaching someone else to do things the..

From the very beginning, the New England Historic Genealogical Society intended to publish works helpful to genealogists. In fact, the first section of the 1845 charter stated that the founders had formed a corporation “for the purpose of collecting, preserving, and..