Tracing one’s family back to their country of origin can be daunting; often the birthplaces found on census records are just countries, with no indication given of province or..

When I began working as a genealogist, my mother expressed great interest in learning more about her father’s family: the Muirs. While she had much information on her mother’s side..

No document is more pivotal to genealogical work than a death certificate. The reason for its importance goes far beyond simply..

In my role as a technical services librarian at NEHGS, one of my regular activities is selecting books from our research library for digitization, and in recent months I’ve been focusing on some of the nineteenth century city directories from our rare books collection...

Back in February, Vita Brevis began posting a series of guides to using the NEHGS collection here in Boston and remotely at home. For ease of reference, I have collected them here, with short excerpts from the articles themselves.

Anne Meringolo began the series: Have..

During my career in genealogy, I’ve become somewhat expert on a variety of subjects, even Cuban research – unexpected, perhaps, but true! Research at a distance – and for Americans, all Cuban research must currently be at a distance – is a..

Massachusetts is one of a handful or so states that allow relatively open access to vital information. It is certainly possible to conduct family research after 1930 for Massachusetts using a combination of resources. FamilySearch.org..

The value of family letters can go far beyond the sentimental, providing important genealogical information on extended family and in-laws that may have been previously unknown. But what if, when attempting to piece together this puzzle of information, you are missing..

Despite its relatively small size, Massachusetts arguably has the most complete and comprehensive set of records of historical value of any state. Record-keeping began shortly after the first settlements were established, and for the most part the records have survived..

I create cheat sheets for projects, but most of them reside inside my head or on scattered pieces of paper in my office – both of which suffer from notorious clutter issues – so it seems like a good exercise to gather and record the process here. In this case, of..