[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

Yesterday, Alicia Crane Williams wrote about the steps she takes when indexing the Early New England Families Study Project, showing the extensive work that makes it possible for us to find ancestors in database searches. But what if you’re not creating a database, but..

I am in the last phases of preparing eight new Early New England Families Study Project sketches for publication on americanancestors.org in the next week or so. I will give full details about each in an upcoming post.

First, I have to create the indexes. Indexing a..

The 1878 Gray diary[1] is unusual in filling two full volumes instead of the more usual single one Mrs...

Over the years I have had the honor of corresponding with veterans from the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. But I must admit that corresponding and talking with some of the last widows of the Civil War was a highlight..

We have a tendency to envision our ancestors as upstanding members of society. In some cases, they were. In others, they were anything but. I first stumbled across Belle Gunness while researching the Midwestern ancestry of a..

When you stop to think about it, boxes make for very special enclosures. I’m sitting here, typing this blog and thinking of the many ways boxes are utilized on a daily basis. For example, there are mail boxes, tool boxes, boxes made for..

Recently a patron asked me why he was unable to find information on his ancestors who arrived before the Mayflower. I explained that Plymouth Colony was the first permanently..

[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from Regina Shober Gray’s diary began here.]

Hotel Baus-au..

[Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 1 April 2015.]

News of King Richard III’s reburial last week was interesting,..