Category Archives: News

General Grant in Singapore

An autograph letter from former president Ulysses S. Grant[1] is a completely unexpected treasure in my grandfather’s box of family papers. The envelope holding the letter is not in Grant’s hand; evidently Rear Admiral Daniel Ammen (1819?–1898), to whom Grant wrote it..

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A second update to Ancestors of American Presidents

Editor’s Note: NEHGS Senior Research Scholar Emeritus Gary Boyd Roberts continues his series of articles updating entries to his Ancestors of American Presidents, 2009 Edition, and its 2012 reprint; the previous entry appears here.

  1. William Howard Taft ancestor William..
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ICYMI: The Great Migration in Vita Brevis

[Editor's note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 6 June 2014.]

St. Bartholomew’s Church, Groton, Suffolk

Over the last five months, Vita Brevis has featured a number of blog posts about the Great Migration Study Project and related subjects. Robert..

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The Governor's chair

Figure 1. The Hancock easy chair with its replaced yellow worsted damask upholstery. The chair is currently on display at the NEHGS Library. Photo by Greg Anthony

In addition to its vast collection of genealogical materials, the New England Historic Genealogical..

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Tracing your African roots at NEHGS

The Old Plantation. Courtesy of Wikimedia.org

From tracing free people of color in New England to identifying former slaves in the deep south, NEHGS can help you tell your family story. We have a number of guides and tools in our library and available through our..

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Québec notarial records

Marriage contract between Joshua Chambers and Elisabeth Stickney, 20 December 1799. Notarial Records of Léon Lalanne

If you descend from French-Canadians, or your ancestors spent some time in Québec, notarial records will be an important source to examine in your..

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ICYMI: Useful databases at AJHS-NEA

[Editor's note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 25 April 2014. Today, AJHS-NEA is known as the Jewish Heritage Center at NEHGS.]

As the American Jewish Historical Society, New England Archives (AJHS–NEA) has only recently formed a strategic partnership..

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A significant anniversary in genealogy

The American Society of Genealogists (ASG) was founded on 28 December 1940 in New York City as an independent society of leading published scholars in the field of American genealogy. An honorary society, ASG is limited to fifty lifetime members designated as Fellows,..

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The last survivor

The remains of San Francisco's City Hall, 20 April 1906. Courtesy of WIkimedia

“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..

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The skipped generation

Three more sketches (16 pages) in the Early New England Families Study Project have just been posted – John Carter of Woburn; Samuel Maverick of Noddles Island, Boston, Maine, New York, etc.; and his wife Amyas (Cole) (Thomson) Maverick.

John Carter is the first..

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