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“How do I become a ghost hunter?” I didn’t wake up one morning and declare that I would be the next Zak Bagans. For that matter, I’m probably the opposite of Zak in nearly every way, when it comes to investigative style and personality. I didn’t know ghost hunting was a thing until one day as a teenager, I saw an ad for a new show Ghost Hunters. I remember waiting excitedly for weeks as I saw the ads on SciFi, long before it became SyFy. After that first episode, I was hooked. I bought every book on ghost hunting, watched every show, and consumed all content related to the Paranormal much to my parent’s chagrin. However, once I was an adult it wasn’t easy. I lived in an area at the time where creating a team was a challenge. Today, I’m part of a professional team that investigates homes and businesses in the Mid-Atlantic. Here are some tips and tricks I picked up along the way. Don’t Break the Law : This seems like common sense, but as someone condensing a Voltaire quote once said, “Common sense ain’t common.” While Urban Explorers flirt with the law, trespassing can carry serious penalties, depending on state and locality. Worse yet, you could make international news like these guys . Get a Recorder : I highly recommend all beginner ghost hunters to buy a recorder. However if strapped for cash, using your phone can work as well. The recorder behind the flashlight is the second most essential tool for a ghost hunter. Most of our evidence tends to be Electronic Voice Phenomena or (EVP) for short. The fancy cameras and gadgets can wait.  3. Visit Historic Sites in the Daytime : You need to build your experience with the paranormal, but how do you do that without breaking the law (See #1)? Go visit your local historic sites, break out your recorder, and start asking questions. My first actual ghost hunting experiences were going out to local battlefields and asking spirits questions. Battlefields were great for me because I could go to a secluded location where I did not look like a crazy woman talking to myself. Just a crazy woman talking to spirits.  4. Do your Research : While ghost hunting shows are exciting to watch, they don’t show the tedious nature of sitting in a room for hours asking questions trying to get an entity to respond. Then comes the hours of listening to yourself questioning spirits for hours! Check out ghost hunting books, blogs, and social media. You’ll find quickly that there are many interpretations on how to hunt for ghosts, and many opinions on the spirit realm as well! 5. Join a Public Ghost Hunt : By this time, you have had experience doing EVP sessions, and you’ve done your research. So now what? Go on a Public Ghost Hunt. It’s one thing to do EVP sessions at night, but many find they are not cut out for paranormal investigations when they are in a pitch-black, cold room. Famous haunted places often host Public Ghost Hunts. On a “Public” as we say for short, you can expect to be grouped with other people (unless you bring a group of friends with you), and there tends to be a group leader. You are usually assigned a zone of the building or location, and you spend a couple of hours at each zone. They range in time from 3 to 4 hours, or in some cases a 6 pm to 6 am investigation. Make sure you bring plenty of caffeine for your first time! Haunted Rooms  is a great site to find an investigation near you.  6. Find a Team : This is easier said than done. During the time I lived in South Carolina, there were not many paranormal teams, and the ones that did exist were not taking extra members. It was not until I moved to Northern Virginia, and realized that there happened to be a group near me. They were open to members, and the rest is history! Ghosthunterteams.com is a great site to check for teams in your state. Meetup  and Facebook groups are also great resources.  7. Create your own Team : There are no rules against creating your own team, and if you live in a remote area, that may be your only option. The positive of creating and recruiting your own team is that you can pick and cultivate individuals you mesh well with. You can also set the goals of what you hope your team will accomplish.  These are just a few tips on breaking into ghost hunting. There are many paths to becoming one, but these tips should help mainstream the process! Happy Hunting!

So you want to be a ghost hunter. You’ve watched all the seasons of Ghost Hunters, including that confusing time when Grant took over the show. You’ve watched everything Travel Channel, A&E, Destination America, and Discovery + have to offer. You’ve even subscribed to your favorite ghost hunters on YouTube. Now it’s time to sign up for your first public ghost hunt. However, before jumping in full throttle it’s important to have some realistic expectations. Here are some unexpected downsides of ghost hunting. Long Hours In a previous post , I suggested that a public ghost hunt should be one of the first ways to go ghost hunting. Part of my reasoning was that if you needed to leave, you weren’t stuck there. Ghost hunts can last between 4-12 hours. If you are in a larger location, most likely it will take longer to cover all the territory. You quickly discover that the paranormal activity is not constant like on the shows, and these hours can tick by slowly. It’s bad etiquette to be on your phone, and your phone can mess with equipment, so you won’t have it as a social crutch. When I used to lead public ghost hunts, the number one complaint was how “boring” it was. If sitting silently in a dark room for hours waiting for any noise on a Saturday night is not your idea of fun, ghost hunting may not be for you. The Weather The weather can be as unpredictable as the paranormal activity at any given location. I have investigated from 17 degrees Fahrenheit to 100 plus. Rain, Snow, Sleet, and Sun, ghosts will keep on haunting no matter the conditions. It’s our job to be prepared. If going to a huge empty building in winter like Trans-Allegheny, Waverly Hills, or West Virginia Penitentiary, expect it to be bitterly cold inside. Bring clothing for the appropriate conditions. My best trick for keeping warm is air-activated hand and boot warmers . In summer, make sure you drink lots of water, and if outside, wear sunscreen. Trust me, there’s nothing more miserable than sitting through an investigation not dressed appropriately and exposed to the elements.  Lack of Facilities It’s always important to research the weather, but it’s equally important to research the location itself. I learned this the hard way when going to a ghost hunt at a new location. This location had just opened up for paranormal investigations. There was one tiny problem: They had no bathrooms, and the portable toilet vendor had not showed up that day. While the men were able to make do with the woods, the ladies had to make trips to a nearby gas station, eating up valuable investigation time. Another unfortunate truth is that most locations are not ADA-friendly. Many of these locations no longer have functioning elevators or accessible walkways. These are things you may need to know before planning a trip.  The People Ghost hunting attracts all types of people from every spectrum of society. And you can be sure you will encounter all of them at a public ghost hunt. Most locations will keep you in a group of your choice at a ghost hunt, but if you are alone or with one other person, you will be grouped with other people. I think every experienced ghost hunter has at one time been grouped with a person who talks non-stop, or the one who uses loud and inaccurate ghost-hunting phone apps, or has been grouped with a bunch of people who scream at every noise. My personal favorite was being grouped with a husband and wife who played Enya music on their phone to calm the Civil War-era spirits. I wish I were lying.  If possible, make sure you go with a group of like-minded individuals, but be prepared to encounter all walks of life.  The Review The one thing I have found in common with all paranormal investigators is we dread the review. Remember, however long you are ghost hunting, you will have to listen at least that long to your audio and cameras. And the more recorders and cameras you have, you are easily multiplying a 5-hour investigation into many hours and days of review. You will hear the same conversations again and again. However, it’s all worth it when you get that one Class A EVP clip.  These are just some of the potential drawbacks to ghost hunting. As a seasoned investigator, I know how to navigate many of these issues, but if you are new, it is important to keep these details in mind. No matter what, it's worth it in the end to have that spooky experience or capture amazing evidence.

“Are you even a historian, if you haven’t broken down in tears over a story you find in the archives?” This was a dark joke often shared by my fellow historians and history students, but until I did local history and property research, I didn’t relate. Of course I had been moved to tears by historical movies and lectures from my favorite professors. And there are stories that always strike a chord in my soul, such as Col. Robert Gould Shaw and his 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, immortalized in the movie Glory (1989). After college, I went straight into teaching, leaving the archives behind. After a few years, I got into genealogy after studying my family history, and of course I started ghost hunting for fun. Due to this, I dusted off my research skills to discover the hidden stories of people’s past. This week, I started preliminary digital research on a building at an undisclosed location. For privacy reasons, I won’t reveal what the research was for, but one thing they requested was to find out the history behind names etched on a glass window pane. On the second story of this building, there is a window pane with Carrie Barrett Aug 1 1885 and Alf Glascock Aug 1 1885 inscribed. Rumor had it that these two were lovers who signed their names into the glass, but after research, a different story emerged. Using Ancestry, I found Alf Glascock. Through his information and FindAGrave, I discovered that “Carrie” or Caroline was 6 and “Alf” or Alfred was 4 years old when the inscription was made. Their mothers were sisters making Caroline and Alf first cousins. Alfred’s father died before he was born, and it appears his mother stayed with her sister. Since they were so close in age, Caroline and Alfred were most likely raised together, and the signatures are an endearing reminder that they were once raised there. I thought back to my visit in the small room, and now it made more sense that it would be a nursery or play/learning area in the home. Caroline married Charles Kennedy and moved to South Dakota, but it was Alfred’s story that stood out to me. Alfred’s mother, Harriet died four years after the names were scratched into the glass, leaving Alfred an orphan. Alfred became a doctor for a military hospital in Washington, D.C. In May of 1918, Alfred resigned as a doctor and enlisted in the United States Army, over a year after the United States entered WWI. He was made Army Captain, and shipped to France in September. Unfortunately, Alfred developed pneumonia and died October 8, 1918, only a month before the Armistice. While unknown, it is possible that Alfred contracted Spanish Flu. Spanish Flu often caused the afflicted to develop Bacterial Pneumonia. In 1920, he was reinterred at Arlington Cemetery. A phrase I remember reading popped into my head. “They were all someone’s baby once.” An image of a recently widowed mother soothing her fussy baby in that room popped in my head. I imagined him playing with his cousin, and their mothers, two sisters at the window, carving each child’s names into the pane of glass. Then an image of him lying dead on a hospital cot somewhere in Mesves-sur-Loire, France. It may seem silly, but I teared up. It’s easy to reduce history to dates and data points.  We can list the numbers of soldiers sent on any given battle, complete with casualties. I know many history teachers and historians who can recite the start and end dates of every United States Presidents’ terms. Too often we forget the most important part of history: The Human Element. Alfred Glascock was someone’s baby. More specifically he was Harriet Fadely Glascock’s baby. I have other stories that stay with me, such as a memoir of a child recalling their father weeping at a Union Soldier’s feet, pleading with them to not throw their recently deceased baby sibling’s clothes on the ground and ransacking the house. Or a family who never recovered after their son Jack, aged 6, died suddenly of appendicitis in the early 1900’s, and lovingly kept his toys and ribbons, still treasured by the descendants today. I think of Jack every day. I think the lesson here is simple. Everyone was someone’s baby at some point, no matter how old, important, or seemingly unimportant we are. And we could all stand to be a little kinder to each other.

Looking for haunted historic places off the beaten path to visit on vacation? If you like mixing your history with the paranormal, you have probably “been there, done that” with haunted places such as the Lizzie Borden House, Waverly Hills, the Queen Mary etc. Here are five places in the United States to check out: Old City Jail, Charleston, South Carolina: In my humble opinion, Savannah, Georgia hogs the spotlight when it comes to the paranormal on the southern coast. Charleston, South Carolina has just as much history and haunted locations. One haunted venue where you can take a tour is the Old City Jail in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in 1802, Old City Jail has hosted thieves, murderers, and pirates. The jail’s most famous occupant, Lavinia Fisher, is said to still haunt her former cell. Lavinia was famous for operating an inn with her husband, luring unsuspecting travelers to rob and murder. Lavinia and her husband were captured and executed for their crimes, but while her husband repented, Lavinia never did. Bulldog Tours hosts a Charleston Haunted Jail Tour, that I can personally say is amazing. A guide will take you through the jail to the areas with the most activity. And if you are lucky like I was, you might catch an image like this: 2. John Paul Jones House Portsmouth, New Hampshire In New England, Massachusetts gets all the ghost glory. But history and haunts can be found in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with the John Paul Jones House Museum. During the Revolutionary War, famous Naval Commander John Paul Jones rented rooms in the house while his ship was repaired . The widow who owned the home, Sarah Purcell, supposedly was taken by the handsome Jones. There is no evidence that Jones and Widow Purcell ever had a relationship, but it is believed by many that both now haunt the home as two star-crossed lovers. The John Paul Jones house is now a museum and featured on the the Portsmouth ghost walk. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky Mammoth Cave has not only a plethora of Natural and Human history, but paranormal history as well. Pre-Columbian Native Americans utilized the cave for shelter and burial purposes. Multiple human remains have been found with intact artifacts giving us a glimpse of indigenous life in North America. Europeans discovered the wonders of Mammoth Cave in the late 1700s. For the next 220 plus years, Mammoth Cave was mined for saltpeter and calcium nitrate, used as a tuberculosis hospital, and host to tourism and the Cave Wars before the National Park Service took over in 1941. It is said that many ghosts haunt the caverns of Mammoth Cave such as Native American spirits and the patients of the Tuberculosis hospital. The most notable spector is that of Floyd Collins. Collins owned Crystal Cave, a section of Mammoth Cave. During the 1920s, he hoped to attract tourist to his cave, and he began expanding the entrance. While excavating, a boulder fell and pinned his leg. A national media frenzy ensued over his rescue, but unfortunately a cave-in separated him from rescuers. Floyd passed away due to starvation and exposure. Many have claimed to hear his voice calling for help in the cave. Today, there are no regular ghost tours of the cave, but occasionally during the Halloween season, the National Park Service hosts events. Still many visitors experience strange and unusual events when visiting the cave today. 4. Hotel Congress Tucson, Arizona If you find yourself in Tucson, Arizona, stay at the notoriously haunted Hotel Congress. Hotel Congress was built in 1918 along with Rialto Theater to attract visitors from the newly built railroad extension. The hotel quickly became a well-known spot for gamblers out west. In the 1930s, it attracted notorious bank robber John Dillenger and his gang as a hide out. A fire broke out in the hotel in 1934, and Dillenger and his gang were arrested when their identities were revealed in the chaos. Hotel Congress fully embraces their ghostly identity, and promotes the fact they are haunted on their website. You can book rooms that are known to be haunted. Room 242 is rumored to be haunted by woman who took her own life. Occupants often wake up in the middle of the night with her sitting at the edge of the bed by their feet. A gambler in a 1920s pinstripe suite has been seen on the first and second floors. Child spirits have been heard playing in the hallway. If you are looking for something spooky and historical on your visit to Tucson, Hotel Congress is a must-stay. 5. Presidio of San Francisco San Francisco The Presidio of San Francisco is often overlooked by visiting tourists, but the former Spanish military base has a long storied history and plenty of ghosts to go with it. The Presidio was built in 1776 on traditional Ohlone land. During the Bear Flag Revolt, the Presidio was captured by U.S. troops, and  successfully held throughout the Mexican-American War. During the Spanish-American War, WWI, and WWII, the Presidio was a key base for troop training, deployment and center for west coast military activities. There was also a prison stockade present in the Presidio. In 1969, Richard Bunch was shot in the back and killed by a guard. This would set off a series of riots and a sit-in protest that later connected with anti-Vietnam War protests. In 1994, the base closed as an active military installation, and taken over by the National Park Service. Multiple locations within the Presidio are said to be haunted including the remains of the old U.S. Army General Hospital, visitor center, and the Officer’s Club. The hospital was so known to be haunted, that the issue of ghosts appear in a 1992 military report. The hospital was partially demolished and reconstructed for LucasFilm, but reported hauntings continue. In the Officer’s club, one woman dressed in black has been seen gliding alone on the dance floor before disappearing. The NPS offers guided tours of the Presidio during the day, and the base is often a stop for the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour.

“Where do I start when it comes to property research?” Two weeks ago, I showed the site Diedinhouse.com as a starting point for researching the history of your home. While Diedinhouse.com is a great starting point when you have nothing, it has limitations. For example, if your home is a new build but you want to know the history of the land you live on, it is unlikely that the site will pull up data from the 1800s. My suggestion for new researchers is reach out to your local in-person resources. I’m all about not reinventing the wheel, and if your home or land has history, odds are someone in your county may have already researched your property. Your first stop should be your local historical or genealogical library. Most counties in the United States have a library that specializes in local history and/or genealogy. Contact them before arriving to give them an idea of your request. They may ask for any information you already have on your property. From there, they will pull resources to be ready for your scheduled visit. If they cannot find anything or do not have the staff to devote to research, most libraries will welcome you to look through their resources. They will have newspapers, microfilm, and other databases you will be able to search through. If your local county or municipality does not have library specializing in local history/genealogy, your state has a state archive, and may be able to assist. If your state archive is too far away, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has Family History Centers with resources. Another avenue to check out would be your county’s Clerk of the Circuit Court or land records management office. This resource will not be free, and often times is by appointment only. In some cases, you have to mail in your request, pay a fee, and wait several days to weeks for a photocopy of the information you requested. If you are pressed for time or money, this option may be difficult. Some counties and municipalities have their records online, but this is often rare. Finally, a good in-person resource is your local museums and historical societies. Museums and historical societies may have information on the families who lived on your land prior to your residence. During one investigation, I contacted the local museum who happened to have a manuscript written by a descendant of the family I was researching. In it they compiled memories and stories passed down in the family, and I was able to use those stories in the ensuing paranormal investigation with great results. These resources should give you more information about your home’s history. In the very least, you will find leads on the people who lived before you.

During consultations, our team has clients who want to find out if they are imagining things or if their property is haunted. But sometimes, our team will get the response, “Oh I know my house/business is haunted, I just want to know WHO the ghost is!” Home and business owners who do their own research want easy, and let’s be honest, historical research is not easy. Records are not always accessible, and many are not digitized. Even when researching archives in person, it can be difficult. I am blessed to live near a research library in my county that has access to preserved records, carefully curated and organized. Meanwhile, my husband and I visited a library in a small town in West Virginia desperate to find any information on his Irish immigrant ancestor, and the librarian pointed us to a messy stack of papers and pamphlets piled haphazardly on a shelf. Recent death records are also often not published for public consumption due to varying state and local laws. It can be hard for property owners to find a starting point. This is why I suggest Diedinhouse.com for people trying to find who might be haunting their property. Diedinhouse.com started out as a resource for potential homebuyers to find out if the property they wanted to purchase had someone die in the house or if it’s near a cemetery. Turns out most people don’t want to purchase a house or property that someone died in or on! Diedinthehouse.com now offers information on properties that tell you if the address is associated with past fires, meth labs, sex offenders, former tenants, and tax information. One useful tool that I find from the site is that it will tell you if a property owner died on the site or if they died while associated with the property. Today, many paranormal researchers believe that a person does not have to die on a site to haunt the site. Diedinhouse.com can help owners get a starting point on their own research, however it is important to note that the search is not free, but very affordable. In many localities, property record and deed searches are usually not free either, and Diedinhouse.com provides a diverse set of records with one search. Historical research can be quite time consuming and cumbersome as well, which is why hiring a researcher who specializes in property research may not be such a bad idea. Diedinhouse.com is a great resource for finding out who is haunting your property. Check out the sample reports they have to see if this is a good fit for you, and good luck on your journey to find who is haunting your property!

I think all ghost hunters have similar backgrounds and reasonings for exploring the paranormal. They either grew up in a haunted house or encountered something unexplainable.  For the majority of people who experience something strange or unusual, the last thing they want to do is talk about it, let alone chase it. But for a select few of us, it begins a journey of finding out why. I was in the former category of people who enter the paranormal world. I grew up in two different houses from birth to age nine. Neither house was haunted. I don’t have stories of talking to people in my house who looked as solid as you and I or have an imaginary friend that was a little less than imaginary. I can only recall one instance of “paranormal” activity, and that was when I was 3 or younger, having a dream in black and white of having coffee at a Parisian cafe probably in the 1920s-1940s. I didn’t know what a Parisian cafe looked like, so describing it was difficult to my mom and dad. I remember my parents being dismissive, and I let it drop for a long time, but one day when I was an adult, it came back to me.  I realized that the dream might have been set in Paris, France, but I’m not sure. Definitely, Europe in the very least. I could recall how the coffee tasted, how people were dressed. Was this a glimpse of a past life or a time slip? I’m still not sure to this day.  But this is my only example of anything paranormal happening to me until I was nine. In 1999, my family moved from one subdivision to another one about a mile away.  For context that will become relevant later, this house (a split level) was built in the 70’s, no deaths occurred in the house, but the entire subdivision was built on the grounds of a former plantation. Due to privacy reasons of people who live there and for my family as well, I will not include any key identifying historical clues online. I knew when we moved in that it felt very different than the house we had just moved from. But again, I was too young to differentiate the feeling of the paranormal from anxiety, and certainly could not explain or express my feelings. All of us started smelling tobacco smoke at random times. Now for transparency, my parents were actively remodeling the house, and the odds that someone had smoked in the house before we owned it are extremely high, so this could easily be written off. Footsteps came next. My parents dismissed this as the settling of the house since we lived on a hill. To this day, I’ve never heard a house settling in steady thumps crescendoing up a stair case. The first major event went off with a literal bang. My sister and I used to “camp” in the living room on Saturdays. We had done this regularly at our old house, but due to moving conditions, had not been able to at the new place. Camping consisted of sleeping with blankets either on the floor or in the La-Z Boy chairs in the living room. From what I remember we had just started to go to sleep, when we heard knocking on the wall near the built in desk. We both thought initially it was the other trying to be scary. But it continued. What happened next set my life’s trajectory. I turned to my right, and all of the kitchen cabinets were hanging open. All of them. They had not been like that before, and our mom hated people leaving the cabinets open, so it was not anyone in our household. Before my sister or I could even comment on the cabinets, they were slammed shut simultaneously with amazing force. I don’t recall running up the stairs, but we were both in our parent’s bedroom screaming frantically. They were not thrilled with us. In fact, both were pretty angry and ordered us to our rooms. That was the last camp out we ever had. Activity continued sporadically as the years went on. Knocks continued, footsteps up and down the stairs at least once a week. The animals took notice, and often would track with their eyes something in the room. A new behavior emerged with my sister and I. We would play down in the lower part of the yard, and without warning we could be in mid-conversation or play, we would get up and run all the way up the hill and into the house. Then we would never talk about it, and go about our day. It wasn’t until years later, that my sister admitted she remember us doing the same thing, when it happened, it was almost like we would go blank, and something was forcing us to do this. I could never understand why it would happen.  When I’ve told this story in the past, I’ve had people ask if I thought we were “possessed”, but I don’t believe we were. It would only last a few seconds and as soon as we were back in the house, it “released” us. One thing was for sure, and that was we were not fully in control. By the time I was in middle school, my parents let me have my own room. I was very happy to finally have my own space free from my sister’s “meddling”. About a couple weeks in, I was dozing off to sleep when I felt a hand go through my hair, pick up my head by the hair, and violently slam my head into the pillow. I sprang out of bed swinging and hit the light. No one was there. There is no way humanely possible that someone could have opened the door, walked in, slammed my head, and get out of the room while also being silent and closing the door silently behind them in the time it took for me to spring up and turn on the light. Despite this, my first thought was it was my sister messing with me.  Even though no one was in my room (which had become ice cold during this encounter) I got up, and walked down the hallway to my sister’s room ready to fight. When I got there, the realization of impossibility began to hit me. She was passed out snoring, and not a person who could fake sleep well. I even checked my parents room on the off chance that they had lost their minds, but they were asleep as well. I began to realize I was completely alone, but something had attacked me. The next day I remember talking out loud in my room and told the ghost that they could stay, but they couldn’t let me see them and they couldn’t touch me. This is advice I now recommend for those who may be experiencing a haunting, but at the time, I didn’t really know what I was doing. To the ghosts’ credit, I never saw any of the spirits or have one touch me again. The next big event came at 16, though small activity was intermittent to continuous. It was July in the Deep South, and I had just come back from a long day at band camp. My parents wanted to go to the grocery store and asked if I wanted to come along. I said I needed to take a shower, so they left with my sister. I got in the shower and put shampoo in my hair. I had just started to rinse it out when there were three loud booming knocks against the door to the bathroom. My Dad had a habit of pounding on the door when he felt I was taking too long in the shower. Of course I was angry. They had just left for the store, but they came back? And he’s mad I’m in the shower? I just got in! I yelled out “Fine, I’ll get out!” and fuming I quickly conditioned my hair. I was ready to get into a screaming match with him, but after I quickly got dressed, I stepped out of the bathroom. The room was ice cold. That never happens in July. Then I noticed the silence. It was ear ringing silent. We had 2 cats and a dog in that house. The cats were hiding under the bed, and the dog had gone to her crate. More importantly, no one was home. I decided it wouldn’t be half bad to wait outside until my parents got home. It was an hour before they got back. The last major event was a doozy. During my senior year, my boyfriend came to my house, and we watched videos on this new site, YouTube. And with that, I just dated myself and aged a thousand years telling you all that. It would take about 5 minutes to load one video, just for it to be a minute long. We’d laugh. Rinse. Repeat.  Imagine TikTok, but slowed incredibly down for you kids out there. We were laughing at one point, when behind us, I heard a woman give a high pitch giggle. I froze, and for the first time outside of my sister I received validation. “Who is that?” We turned and saw no one. The laugh came from the same kitchen where the cabinets had all opened and slammed shut years earlier. Just one problem. My parents and sister were all upstairs taking a nap. We looked outside to see if someone was near our back door, the only possible area where someone could be, but again the sound clearly came from inside the house. There was no one outside, no tv on upstairs, nothing. Up until this point, I had always assumed the ghost was male. This was a woman. I now believe there are multiple spirits that roam that house. I graduated and went off to college. Since college, I’ve only had a few minor experiences, just enough to know whatever it is, is still there. I majored in History, and was able to use research tools to find out who could be haunting the house. We had confirmed years ago with neighbors who had lived in the neighborhood since the house was built that no one actually died in the house. Later, diedinthehouse.com searches confirmed this as well. I next researched the history of the plantation. There is a whole story I wish I could tell on here, but for privacy reasons, the person who built the plantation was one of several brothers from Virginia who traveled South in the mid-1700s. The plantation was known for growing cotton as most were, but the family also raised and raced Thoroughbreds. The house is about a quarter mile from my house. I know now from experience as an investigator that spirits can indeed travel that far. But what stood out to me is that on map overlays, you could see that the quarters for the enslaved were roughly in the street in front of my house. So were the spirits family members of the plantation owners? Or the enslaved? Maybe indigenous, as there was also Native Americans in the area. I have never received any answers because my family still lives in this house, and my mom refuses to allow me to investigate the house. There is a post script to this story however, and might explain why so many things happened to me. 7 months after my son was born, my husband and I traveled to our home state so he could meet our families. We stayed a few days at my parent’s home, and nothing noteworthy happened. We then stayed with my husband’s family for a few days and drove back home. The next day after we got back, I received a phone call from my mom. “You won’t believe what happened!” “What’s wrong?” “Your sister and I were at the bottom of the stairs and we heard your son babbling and cooing in your room.” “Wait, what?” “We went upstairs thinking it must be some toy you all left behind, but the babbling continued until we opened the door. It was just silence. Nothing was there.” Around the same time, I started getting into genealogical research, which has offered even more research tools at my disposal. I traced one line of my family. I saw the familiar name of the plantation owner’s. It’s not exactly an uncommon name, but on a whim I investigated. It turned out we were descended from the brother of the plantation owner. If you think that story is insane, you should hear my mom’s story. Another time.

I’m not much of a blogger. In fact, I’ve never been much of a journaler. I have a bad habit of starting diaries, journals, and daily entries, but dropping them after a few weeks or even a day. Funny enough, I am a historian. Currently, I teach high school history, but my heart has always belonged to historical and archival research. I am most at home reading probates and land records. I comb estate and census documents in the hopes of finding a never before discovered clue about a person from the past. And of course, finding the holy grails of letters and journals to find insight on how this person lived, how they moved through society, to discover what they thought of political and social events. Every person that ever lived is a mystery to discover, and I treat their records as a treasure hunt. Ironically, I know I’m leaving very little of myself behind. Most of what can be found of me is online, and most historians agree we are in a digital dark age, and unaware of it. That makes me an inherent hypocrite. This blog will most likely be long lost with our social media footprints. If something takes out our data centers and networks, will our content ever be restored? I often wonder what our ancestors have lost in the passages of time; what were their intentions, their passions? It is luck if their estate inventory even survives. I’m a paranormal investigator. Reactions to this revelation range from pique curiosity to revulsion. The minor backlash I’ve received tends to end up with people quietly disassociating from me. They respond with, “But you seemed so normal?” “Why waste your time with things that aren’t real?” or pleading for my immortal soul. The meanest, but funniest was a simple “Ew, gross.” with the person walking away. You would think with all of the paranormal shows on T.V. and social media these days, Fortean topics would be more accepted in conversation. Overall, the responses do tend to be positive, even if the person is wary. I grew up in a haunted house, but that’s a story for later. What is important is at a young age I became obsessed with the paranormal. I begged my parents for book money to buy every paranormal book I could find from Aliens to Bigfoot, but my hyperfocus were ghost stories. The one commonality with ghost stories is history, and because I zoned in on ghosts, being knowledgeable about history was essential. I would have never become a historian if it had not been those ghosts who haunted my childhood home. I became a “professional” ghost hunter in 2016, when I finally found a team to work with. With that first team, we often volunteered to lead groups of people through known haunted locations. This helped shape my investigative style and gave me the experience I needed under my belt. Since we investigated the same places over and over again, I could experiment with equipment and questions. And because I’m a nerd at heart, I would uncover what I could about a location. I took what I learned as a historian in college and applied it to property research. I also combined my tools as an amateur genealogist to uncover what I could about the people associated with the property. I used this research and “discoveries” to guide my questioning during investigations and EVP sessions. The results were immediate. Activity increased with relevant questioning, and soon we were getting responses, sometimes out loud. Today this is standard practice for me at a new location. The paranormal team I am now with, Chesapeake Paranormal, uses the research to bring up events and names that the spirits might be familiar with. Instead of plastering them with the usual “Is there anyone here with us?", “Do you know you are dead?” “Do you have a message?” questions can be more direct and personal. I will create a post in the future for questions to ask spirits. On the other hand, I have run into other investigators that for them, history of the location is an afterthought. In one conversation I had online, another investigator thought I was “wasting my time” with research, and that the spirits or ghosts will give us all the answers we need. I’ve gone into many investigations “blind”. In fact, when I go to an “established” haunt (think Trans Allegheny or Waverly) I often don’t do much historical research other than maybe watch a ghost show that the site was featured on. There have been last minute home or business investigations I’ve joined in on and had no time for any research. And I can tell you that there tends to be a difference in results. When we have research and names to guide us in our questioning, the results are more consistent than going in without knowing and asking the usual generic questions.  And to those saying the ghosts give us all the answers we need, in some cases they “confirm” the history, and there have been other times that they have given us “information” that is conflicting.  But the key point is we get a response either way. I’m hoping through this blog and social media, that I can give some history research tips for investigators. I don’t see many paranormal teams integrating research, and it’s something I would like to see in the field more often. Even if you are not a fan of ghost hunting, these topics and tips could help further your own historical and genealogical research. Thank you for starting this journey with me. I’m not sure where we will go, but I do know it will be an adventure! -The Fortean Historian