Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Regina Shober Gray [1] was an energetic and well-educated woman of her time. Her diary abounds with visits to the theater and to commercial art galleries (the precursors of museums), so I..Continue reading
John Henry Beeckman's nephew, Robert Livingston Beeckman (1866-1935).
One of the trends in my ancestry is the curious one whereby, when given the choice between staying in a locale or moving on, my nineteenth-century forebears often remained behind as other..
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When I was writing my new book, The Stranger in My Genes – about the DNA test I took that shockingly suggested my father wasn't really my father – I thought my story was unusual, if not unique. Boy, was I wrong.
After the ebook version was released on August 23, I..
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With A. J. Jacobs at the Global Family Reunion in early June 2015.
[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 29 June 2015.]
Over the years I have had the chance to discuss the subject of ethnicity (and identity) with avid genealogists and..
Continue reading[Author’s note: This post concludes the series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary which began here.]
Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
Mrs. Gray’s [1] summer was winding down, and while autumn impended she could..Continue reading
Boys playing stick ball. Photo courtesy of formerdays.com
My maternal grandparents were born in 1932: they were just nine years old at the beginning of World War II. They grew up blocks from each other in the Bronx: Nana in The Alley, and Papa on the other side of..
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I have sometimes mentioned how much stuff I inherited from my mother and her family. Mother left it all to me with the cheerful instructions that I was to figure out what to do with it.
For years, decades, I have intended to catalog and arrange, describe, and account..
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It may surprise you to read (or not, if you’re family) that I have squirrels in my closets. They nest in bins, and hide under papers, books, or textiles when I want to find one, or shout for attention when I don’t. But I like living indoors without wildlife, so these..
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William Chapin's bench
A nice example of genealogical good fortune came my way as a result of a past blog post I wrote regarding my search for family photos.
The comment, written nearly a year afterward, was from Nancy Chapin:
Continue reading[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]
Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
In 1880, Regina Shober Gray [1] became a grandmother (in January) and a widow (in February). The Gray..Continue reading