Secrets of the Asylum

“Secrets of the Asylum” with Julianne Mangin

Saturday, March 16, 2024, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. 

Networking at 10 a.m.

Virtual Meeting

The virtual program is one of many member benefits of the Connecticut Ancestry Society. Members will be sent a Zoom link in the week prior to the meeting. 

“What do you do when your family stories don’t add up?”

Retired librarian Julianne Mangin was a reluctant genealogist — at first. But after acquiring her ailing mother’s genealogy files, she was drawn into the family history. All she had wanted to do was fact check her mother’s cryptic stories of her childhood, which featured a delicatessen, a state hospital, a county home for neglected children. In 2012, she acquired her grandmother’s patient record from Norwich State Hospital, and the secrets just poured out.

Using patient records, genealogical methods, and DNA testing, Mangin has pieced together a family story that reads like a Dickens novel. Weaving in what she learned about intergenerational trauma and the consequences of family secrets, Mangin has created a testament to the power of family history to empower people and heal old wounds.

Julianne Mangin is a retired librarian with a thirty-year career in Federal government libraries, including the Library of Congress (1998-2011). She is now an independent researcher, writer, local and family historian, and cemetery preservation advocate. Her first book, Secrets of the Asylum is the result of several years of deep research into the mysteries of her family.