Every investigation reaches a point where the facts stop cooperating.
In Episode 4 , The Confession, host Sammy Jo steps out from behind the story to confront the contradictions inside her own research.
Was Eleanor Neale, the woman accused of witchcraft in 1671 Colonial Virginia, the same Eleanor listed years earlier on a transport ship from England? Or had history confused her with a noblewoman or even her own daughter-in-law?
Join Sammy Jo as she retraces records that don’t align, faces the gaps in centuries-old archives, and even compares her DNA results against the regions Eleanor might have called home. What happens when family lore and hard evidence refuse to agree?
🎧 Part historical detective story, part personal reckoning, this episode exposes how easily our ancestors’ truths can blur into myth.
Further Readings and Sources for this episode:
- Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. 31 (Beverley Fleet) – 1641–1642 fornication/adultery proceedings
- Northumberland County Record Books 1658–1662 & 1666–1673, Library of Virginia Digital Collections
- O’Hart, John (1892), Irish & Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry – transport lists reference
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