One hundred years ago today, on 29 May 1917, Rose Kennedy gave birth to the future president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in a charming three-story Colonial on a lovely street in Brookline, Massachusetts. That same..

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Earlier this month I went to the National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, North Carolina; it was my first time in the Tar Heel State. While I have many southern ancestors who started out in Virginia and Maryland before heading..

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Mrs. Gray’s diary [1] continues, with the results of the 1864 presidential election:

61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Wednesday, 9 November 1864: The great election-day passed off without..

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The diarist Regina Shober Gray [1] began the Civil War with mixed feelings about the new American president; by late 1864 she had no doubts about his integrity or his importance to the..Continue reading →

The documentary “Birth of a Movement” – which premiered on 30 January at the Somerville Theatre outside Boston, and airs nationally on PBS on Monday 6 February during African-American History Month – explores D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a..

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[Author's note: This series, on Mrs. Gray's reading habits, began here.]

Regina Shober Gray [1] turned forty-five at the end of 1863; her children were growing up. At the same time, her..Continue reading →

It might seem odd, but the 1860 election – pitting Congressman Abraham Lincoln and Senator Hannibal Hamlin against Senator John Cabell Breckenridge and Senator Joseph Lane – did not particularly transfix the nation – at least if one goes by..

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[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, began here.]

Of particular interest in these entries is Regina Shober Gray’s [1] depiction of being photographed in September..Continue reading →

[ Author's note: This series, on Mrs. Gray's reading habits, began here.]

By the winter of 1861, an American civil war loomed. Regina Shober Gray[1] – a native of Pennsylvania with Southern..

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I think about genealogy for much of my day. Therefore, on a recent trip to Boston’s Museum of Science, I was again thinking about how I could apply something that I learned that day to make me a better genealogist. Thankfully, the Museum has a new(er) exhibit that is..

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