Category Archives: Research-tips

Satisfactory accounts

In my blog post The Wings of a dilemma, I bemoaned the fact that although so much has been published about the Wing family over the years, I could not find a “satisfactory” account of the early Wing family. Raymond Wing of The Wing Family Association has kindly brought..

Continue reading

What's in a name: Part Two

Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

In the coming weeks, I will be reviewing a diary in our collection with an eye toward its eventual publication. The diarist is Hedwiga Regina (Shober) Gray..

Continue reading

"Shake it off!"

Over the last year or so I have had some interesting matches amongst “DNA Relatives” on the website 23andme.com. I manage the profiles of my parents, my mother’s brother, and my wife’s parents. So far, the most interesting results have all come about from my mother and..

Continue reading

Double-dating

The Death Warrant of King Charles I, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/rise_parliament/docs/charles_warrant.htm

Millions of British citizens and their colonial counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean went to sleep on 2 September 1752 and woke up..

Continue reading

The Wings of a dilemma

The Wing family of Cape Cod has had a great amount of genealogical information published about it over the years. Beginning with Rev. Conway P. Wing’s A Historical and Genealogical Register of John Wing, of Sandwich, Mass. And his Descendants, 1632-1888, the list..

Continue reading

The year in review concluded

In yesterday's post, I covered some of the more than 250 blog posts published in Vita Brevis during the first half of 2014. The series concludes with a post from each of the last six months of the year.

At the end of July, Katrina Fahy solved a genealogical puzzle..

Continue reading

The year in review

99-101 Newbury Street, the New England Historic Genealogical Society's home since December 1964

As I write this, a few days before the New Year begins, Vita Brevis is nearly a year old; it has had more than 300,000 page views since its first post on 2 January 2014...

Continue reading

The family historian

Margaret Steward in Goshen, New York

Most families have one: the family historian. Whether or not the focus is genealogical, there is usually at least one family member who keeps track of siblings and cousins, sometimes to the nth degree. My father's family had one..

Continue reading

Moving to (and through) New York

Building on previous posts, which featured books that help with researching ancestors who arrived first in Massachusetts and then moved westward or northward, this entry will look at some resources available to researchers whose ancestors moved to or first arrived in..

Continue reading

Reading other people's mail: Part Two

Thomas Hutchinson (1711–1780) was the last crown-appointed civilian governor of Massachusetts. During his term of office, he dealt with the aftermath of both the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. The Colonial Society of Massachusetts has recently published the..

Continue reading