Susan McNelley is a reader, writer, researcher, family historian, and travel enthusiast. She lives with her husband on the central coast of California. Susan has long been interested in women’s stories, particularly those occurring in other places and in other times. She has also been researching family history for some forty years. Many years ago, she traced her personal ancestry back to seventeenth-century Québec and to Hélène Desportes. Thus began a quest to learn more about what life was like for the early colonists of New France and led to the researching and writing of two books. Hélène's World: Hélène Desportes of Seventeenth-Century Québec was published in 2013 and The Women of Ville-Marie: Pioneers of Seventeenth-Century Montréal in 2022. Both are meticulously researched and documented. The author has an MA in the Humanities. In addition to the above books, she has published a good number of articles on her family history research. She has been featured in four podcasts available on Sandra Goodwin’s Maple Stars and Stripes website. These podcasts discuss the author’s research into various aspects of life in seventeenth-century New France. Her website, www.tracingsbysam.com, focuses on family history and resources for those interested in genealogy.
