Category Archives: Spotlight

Conserving some NEHGS treasures

One of the things I like most about my job at the Society is that, because we are such a small operation, we tackle a wonderful array of projects. For example, for the past month I have been cleaning and backing this 29” x 42” broadside. It was an announcement..

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Sandwich and Eastham Town Records

You know you are a genealogist when the highlight of your week is the delivery of two newly published volumes of town records! These are The Town Records of Eastham during the Time of Plymouth Colony, 1620-1692, and The Town Records of Sandwich during the Time of..

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Still more thoughts on preparing to publish

By phone, at seminars, and now at webinars, we field many questions from people who are interested in writing family histories. Here are a few of the most frequent questions we hear:

How do I get started? There’s no way around it: getting started can be difficult. You..

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The Lane School on Malaga Island

Captain George W. Lane, a Christian missionary and a Civil War veteran, first visited Malaga Island in 1906. The island, located in the New Meadows River near Phippsburg, Maine, is now an uninhabited state preserve, but in Captain Lane’s time the island was the site of..

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Further thoughts on preparing your genealogical project for publication

In a recent blog post on preparing a project for publication, Scott Steward targeted that essential shift in thinking that must occur as you translate your research project into a writing project. And he pointed out how important it is to write a table of contents . ...

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Using the HathiTrust Digital Library

I have access to every book, microfilm and manuscript in the NEHGS library, but because I don’t actually work in the building (I work from home, generally on a 3 pm to 3 am schedule), I have to rely on the staff at the library to make copies. Fortunately, with so many..

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Traditional research techniques - and new ones

Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins with his contemplation of “two roads diverg[ing] in a yellow wood,” and his indecision about whether to follow one path or the other. In the end, the author chooses what he deems “the path less traveled by.” Yet..

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One hundred posts on Vita Brevis

In a few days, Vita Brevis will have published one hundred blog posts. Thinking back to about a year ago, when the subject of the blog was first broached, I can say that I only thought through the mechanics of preparing and posting the first half-dozen; everything..

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The NEHGS library collection, 2013-2014

In my role as Technical Services Manager for the NEHGS library, one of my responsibilities is to develop and maintain the library collection. The library has a diverse collection of print and online books, microfilm, cd-roms, and databases to help with your..

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The Eliot Snider Papers

The AJHS–NEA archives are filled with stories of individuals and families who have affected the Jewish communities of Greater Boston and New England. Eliot Snider is the focus of one  such collection.

Four years before Eliot was born, his father – Harry, a Jewish..

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