Searching for anything in My Old House carries certain risks, usually in the form of an interesting distraction (corsets, small bones I still refuse to discuss, or shoe lasts). My latest search turned up my..

Editor's Note: This is part three of a series on digitizing our special collections. The previous posts can be read here and here.

Good news! The next phase of our digitization project is under way. We’ve just received the first batch of images from our scanning..

Over the past thirty years I have examined thousands of old slate gravestones in the cemeteries of New England. This fascination led me to write A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries, which allowed me to determine the oldest cemeteries in the Commonwealth of..

Recently, I had a client who wanted to know more about a silver teapot designed by the Hurd silversmiths of Boston that had been passed down through his family. The teapot had the name “Sally Brown” engraved on it, but to his..

As genealogists, we tend to focus on the more remote past, rarely pausing to consider our parents’ or grandparents’ times in a rush to get back to 1850, or 1750, or sometime before that. Someday, of course, 1950 will seem as..

Continuing with the parts of a deed from my last post:

Warranty: “…to warrant & forever confirm the same unto him the said Josiah Lichfield his heirs & assigns from & against all the lawful claims and demands of all persons whatsoever.” (Types of deeds will be..

Tracing the origins of Canadian ancestors can be difficult, and the lack of early vital records can prove frustrating. Often, we have to turn to other sources to help piece together family..

This past summer, the release of images and data discovered in the burials beneath the Jamestowne Colony’s first parish chancel attracted nationwide interest. These were remarkable for their antiquity, the prominent positions the interred colonists had occupied, and..

The youngest of the surviving Beeckman siblings, my great-great-uncle Livy[1] was the first to die. My great-grandmother – his sister Margaret Atherton (Beeckman) Steward (1861–1951) – preserved what was presumably the last of his letters, written from his house in..

I am fortunate to be the oldest of eleven grandchildren. Because of my age, I was old enough to remember attending my great-great-aunt’s eightieth birthday party, dancing with my great-grandmother at my aunt’s wedding, and eating several Thanksgiving dinners with my..