The Civil War was a time of conflict and distress. While we often hear stories of the courageous men who fought the bloody battles of a terrible and long war, the battles did not stop on the fields. Citizens from all states and backgrounds gathered strength and stepped..

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It’s always interesting when research projects overlap – and in unexpected ways. In working on a new genealogy of the Samuel Lawrence family of Groton, Massachusetts, I’ve encountered a man I covered in my 2013 book on the descendants of Nathaniel Saltonstall of..

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The third and final entry in the Regina Shober Gray [1] diary on the death of her sister Lizzie [2] turns from private grief to the public response to the news.

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston,..

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[Author's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 23 February 2017.]

As I complete publishing excerpts from the 1865 volume, the final year in..

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The death of the diarist’s sister Lizzie Shober [1] fills pages in her manuscript diary. [2] Here, in the second installment (of three), Mrs. Gray gathers memories and impressions of her..Continue reading →

The death of the diarist’s sister Lizzie Shober [1] is the subject of three diary entries – among the longest passages in the Regina Shober Gray [2] diary, and closing out the year 1865. In..Continue reading →

In this entry, Regina Shober Gray [1] touches on some of the constraints she felt as a poor relation in a family with richer members. Her economies with seamstresses had repercussions for..Continue reading →

Santa Claus arrived in July with a portable hard drive full of the newly-digitized images from the microfilm of Clarence Almon Torrey’s twelve-volume manuscript, New England Marriages Prior to 1700. It has been forty years since I last had quality time with Clarence...

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[Editor's note: A version of this post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 7 November 2016; its contents have been updated by Molly Rogers.]

The genealogy column in the Boston Evening Transcript newspaper has been one of the more heavily used resources at the NEHGS..

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Marital entanglements gave Regina Shober Gray [1] grist for the mill: Georgie Blake’s summer romance at Marion had played out to the extent that Miss Blake’s fiancé swore “he could not marry..Continue reading →