Category Archives: Family Stories

A sojourn in California

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, ,
Adrian Todd
Adrian Sidney Todd (1918-1959)

When I contemplated the subject of my first post, I decided that I should write about the person who sparked my genealogical interest in the first place: my paternal grandfather, Adrian Sidney Todd. Adrian died young, and I never had the chance to meet him, so I thought I would use genealogy to see what I could find out for myself. He was born 6 February 1918 in Georgia to Adrian Sidney and Susie (Stanley) Todd, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps in both World War II and Korea. Continue reading A sojourn in California →

400 posts at Vita Brevis

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, News, Research Methods, , , , , , , ,
Building_exterior_night 076
This photo of the Society’s Newbury Street exterior at night illustrated the first Vita Brevis post in January 2014.

Friday’s post, by Steven Solomon of the Society’s Development team, marked the four hundredth blog post at Vita Brevis. Since its launch in January 2014, the blog has featured posts by 64 bloggers, almost all of them NEHGS staff members, with a few outside contributors or transcribed interviews making up the remainder. What does the genealogical mosaic about which I wrote in the first post at Vita Brevis look like after eighteen months in the blog’s life? Continue reading 400 posts at Vita Brevis →

“A garden of roses”

American History, Family Stories, ,
Nathan Rosenau
Nathan Rosenau (1835-1920)

My genealogical journey started sometime between elementary school and junior high school with a crude, hand drawn chart of “the family” going back three or four generations. While my mother, Ellen Harris Solomon, had some interest in the history of our family, it was her sister, Jean Harris Sterne Steinhart, who, with their parents, Alice Selig Harris and Harold Rosenau Harris, was the keeper of the Harris family flame. The one line we’ve been able to follow back to 1750 is the Rosenau family in Bad Kissingen, Bavaria. Continue reading “A garden of roses” →

A slice of life

American History, Collections, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, , ,
George Bruce Upton
George Bruce Upton (1804-1874). NEHGS Collection

For as long as I’ve had my present office on the Society’s third floor, I’ve looked through my open door at a portrait of George Bruce Upton (1804–1874), the Society’s vice president between 1866 and 1874. I will confess that my eye did not linger over Mr. Upton’s portrait, as the representation does not appeal to me; on the other hand, immersed as I was this winter in my sabbatical project, once I noticed his nameplate I realized that Mr. Upton and his family appear frequently in the Gray diary:[1] Continue reading A slice of life →

A very small world

Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
Burke 1
The Burkes of Oranmore

It’s a very, very small world.

Recently, I received some photos of my mother’s Irish ancestors from a cousin. Most of these photos featured the Burke family of Oranmore, Galway, and I was excited to learn that many of the photos had been labeled and dated. Continue reading A very small world →

The scope of the Gray diary

American History, Family Stories, NEHGS Collections, , ,
Hedwiga Gray diary1
Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, entries for 5-7 February 1864. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections

For the last six months or so, I have been engrossed in the daily diary of Hedwiga Regina (Shober) Gray (1818–1885), a Philadelphia-born Boston lady who wrote about her family, her household, and the larger world between 1860 and 1884. In almost a dozen blog posts I’ve quoted Mrs. Gray on contemporary celebrities (Mrs. Jack Gardner’s behavior merits a scolding for being “fast”; the diarist’s children see Tom Thumb perform and are “much pleased & amused”); on the danger of fire in the household (Mrs. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is burned to death, while Eliza Winthrop survives a mattress fire); and on the painful grief associated with settling a beloved sister’s estate as relationships degrade between Mrs. Gray, her surviving sisters, and their younger brother. Continue reading The scope of the Gray diary →

The Stratton Files

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , , ,

Penny at podium_cropped[Editor’s Note: Penny Stratton is one of the most prolific and popular bloggers at Vita Brevis. The following are some excerpts from her posts between January 2014 and February 2015.]

From Capturing the Recent Past: As I revise the new NEHGS Guide to Genealogical Writing (2014), I’ve been thinking ahead to a future project of my own: writing my family’s history. Having edited and produced a number of compiled genealogies at NEHGS, I have the genealogical format down cold. That’s the easy part. But what will I include for narrative information, to help bring the stories to life? Continue reading The Stratton Files →

In search of family photos: Part Two

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , ,
Child photo 3
Four generations in the late 1920s. From left: in his father’s arms, Gilbert Wayne Helman III (1926-2010); Gilbert Wayne Helman, Jr. (1906-1985); Gilbert Wayne Helman, Sr. (1882-1945); and Herbert Heath Helman (1854-1931).

As a personal challenge, after seeing a few genealogist friends on Facebook post ancestor charts with photographs of their ancestors back to (in many cases) their great-great-grandparents, I decided to see how “complete” my collection of ancestral photos was.

Turning my attention to photos of my paternal grandmother’s family, I contacted several cousins and arranged to meet my second cousin in Pennsylvania. He also had several photos which he allowed me to take back to Boston. Unfortunately, most of these were not identified. We were able to identify our great-great-grandfather, Herbert Heath Helman, as he posed in a picture with this cousin’s father as a baby in the late 1920s. Continue reading In search of family photos: Part Two →

New voices at Vita Brevis

American History, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Lineage Societies, News, Research Methods, , , , , , ,
The Apprentices
Giuseppe Sarni with some of his apprentices.

A number of new bloggers made their début on Vita Brevis during the first half of 2015. Tricia Labbe, of the Society’s Membership Services team, wrote in February about breaking through a brick wall on her father’s mother’s family, the Dionnes:

“When I began working at NEHGS in 2014, I realized that staff experts might help me uncover questions relating to my Dionne family line. Continue reading New voices at Vita Brevis →

In search of family photos: Part One

American History, Family Stories, Research Methods, , , , ,
Child photo 1
Click on the image to expand it.

As a personal challenge, after seeing a few genealogist friends on Facebook post ancestor charts with photographs of their ancestors back to (in many cases) their great-great-grandparents, I decided to see how “complete” my collection of ancestral photos was. I have quite a few photos myself and have scanned many that other relatives have had over the years. This has often been a result of contacting second or third cousins, usually with around a 5-10% success rate when a relative actually turns out to have photographs of our common ancestors. Continue reading In search of family photos: Part One →