On 6 November 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the Rutgers Queensmen[1] defeated the College of New Jersey[2] Tigers by a score of 6 to 4 in what is regarded as the first college football game ever played.[3] College..

One of the resources every family historian hopes to find and treasure is a family Bible full of handwritten notations of births, marriages, and deaths. These Bibles are often beautiful in themselves for their illuminated pages, or for the well-worn leather covers..

For the last year or so, I’ve been immersed in the diary of Regina Shober Gray (1818–1885), a Philadelphian who lived on Beacon Hill in Boston for more than forty..

[Editor’s note: Henry B. Hoff, C.G., F.A.S.G., is editor of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Excerpts from some of his Vita Brevis posts can be read below.]

From Just how reliable is that source?: Many of us have been betrayed, genealogically..

“It was 5:14 o'clock in the morning of Wednesday, April 18 [1906]. Nearly half a million people on the western edge of the American continent awoke suddenly with a roaring in their ears..

[Editor’s note: Katrina Fahy has written a number of posts on researching her Scottish, Irish, and German ancestors. Some of her techniques – and successes – are excerpted below.]

From Finding William Muir: When I began working as a genealogist, my mother expressed..

Coming from a family of active amateur photographers, the (still) new digital age of photography has significantly changed the way I look at and convey my world, its events, my life, and my family. Gone are the days of, “Oh, no, I just..

There are many stories that reside in the papers and photographs our forebears set aside to keep. These stories sometimes lack a key, but here is one that, thanks to a loving sister, retains its general outline.

On the first day of 2016, Vita Brevis can boast 780,157 page views over the life of the blog. With dozens of voices writing for the blog, I hope that readers will check back often to see what’s new at Vita Brevis. Following yesterday’s blog post, here follows a..

Vita Brevis recently marked a milestone, with the publication of its five-hundredth blog post. Early in January 2016, the blog will celebrate its second birthday, and, in a tradition started last year, today and tomorrow I will..