This month’s meeting of The Genealogy Club of Newtown will be held on Wednesday, March 11, at 7 pm via Zoom. Juliann Mangin will share her own genealogy journey and the book she wrote about her discoveries, Secrets of the Asylum, Norwich State Hospital and My Family.

A retired librarian, Mangin was a reluctant genealogist — at first. After acquiring her ailing mother’s genealogy files, however, something drew her into the family history. Maybe it was years of listening to her mother’s cryptic stories of her childhood which featured a delicatessen, a state hospital, a county home for neglected children, and a father who disappeared. Even though Grandpa divorced her mother and never got her out of the county home, Mangin’s mother defended her father’s absence and called him a wonderful father.

At first, all Mangin meant to do was organize her mother’s files so they could be stored more compactly. But it wasn’t long before she began noticing errors, omissions, and discrepancies in her mother’s research that cast doubt on the family stories.

Thus began her transformation from reluctant genealogist to relentless family historian. She acquired her grandmother’s patient record from Norwich State Hospital and the secrets just spilled out.

Mangin discovered there were four other women in her mother’s family who were patients at state hospitals, three of them at Norwich State Hospital. There was also evidence that Grandpa might not be her mother’s father.

Reading the transcripts of her grandmother’s interviews with hospital staff, Mangin unearthed a dark secret at the heart of her mother’s childhood. Through her research, Mangin uncovered her French-Canadian heritage and delved into the history of the care of the mentally ill in the early 20th century. She learned how poverty and mental illness loomed over the family’s fortunes.

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.

Meetings of The Genealogy Club of Newtown are held the second Wednesday of each month from September through June. New members are always welcome.

The programs are co-sponsored by C.H. Booth Library and are open to the public.

To attend as a guest, send an e-mail with name, address, phone number, and preferred e-mail address, by March 8 at the latest, to genclubnewtownct.secretary@gmail.com. The program link for March 11 will be e-mailed. Those planning to join the Zoom meeting are asked to sign in beginning at 6:45 pm so that everyone can be admitted before the meeting begins at 7.