M L Condike

My fascination with genealogy began when I received an original 1922 copy of my mother’s family tree dating back to the American Revolution. While learning genealogy research techniques, I stumbled upon stories about cold cases solved using DNA analysis and family groups. In 2018 the DNA Doe Project was founded in 2017 by Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press. announced they had solved the first cold case using genetic genealogy to positively identify a 21-year-old woman, known as the “Buckskin Girl,” who had been found strangled in Ohio in 1981. Identifying the “Buckskin Girl” made me wonder if someone could solve century-old cases using genetic genealogy. This led me to research disappearances and mysterious deaths going back centuries. The first case that caught my attention was the 180-year-old mysterious death of Mary Rogers. This case sowed the seed for my first novel. More cases followed that led to books two and three.