Lincoln County Courthouse, Kentucky. Photo by Russell and Sydney Poore via Wikimedia Commons.

In July of the summer of 2013, my husband and I took a driving trip through the back roads of Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri, so I could visit courthouses and see documents..

According to his death certificate, Rufus Freeman of Myrtle Grove Sound in New Hanover County, North Carolina died on 26 September, 1923.¹An autopsy was done in James Walker Hospital by the coroner G. S. Holden, who confirmed Rufus Freeman’s cause of death: “shot by..

My great-grandmother Kathleen never spoke much about her childhood, but she always wondered what happened to her little brother Joe.

When George Washington Flint was buried in 1873, I doubt anyone suspected that in little over a century, his final resting spot would one day be the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

For many years, my family’s brick wall stood firm at the unknown parentage of Betsey Doty, who married Ebenezer Besse in Plymouth on 26 September..

I wrote about Margaret (Mulligan) Kelleher and her infant son John Cornelius Kelleher a few months ago in a previous Vita Brevis post. While I thought the trail had..

I have been researching a group of Irish folks who came to Buffalo, New York by way of Montreal. Although the State of New York did not mandate vital registration until 1881, the..

Not too long ago, I shared my experience of joining American Ancestors’ recent Scottish Heritage Tour. In that post I briefly introduced you to an intriguing ancestor of mine—John Lynch Breslin, Jr., who was imprisoned for attempted arson. Today I want to discuss how I..

This past May, I taught a class on 18^th century Pennsylvania and highlighted some documents I had discovered for my Pennsylvania ancestors. As I prepared for the..

Hugh MacDiarmid, one of Scotland’s most successful modern-day poets, once described his home country as having “loose ends.” Scotland is, undeniably, a land steeped in legends, myths, and mysteries—from the enigmatic..