Stepping Stone Genealogy

Hi everyone! I'm Dan. One half of Perceived Paranormal East Coast. I first started investigating with my wife, Alyssa, in 2024. As an amateur historian and genealogist, I do a majority of the research and follow-up for investigations. I've always been into history and appreciating what those before us went through, and some years back, I got into researching my genealogy.

Starting in 2020, I began researching my family ancestry as a way to connect and do some personal healing. I found the sites Wikitree and FamilySearch, and the obsession began. Both allow users to build profiles for their ancestors and loved ones and allow users to connect and merge family trees. I primarily built and maintained profiles on Wikitree. I utilized FamilySearch for all records, slides, and photos. I was building, changing, and adding to profiles every day for a year. Once FamilySearch dropped an app, I made the jump to their platform. FamilySearch allows me to add photos, records, voice recordings, and video to profiles I've created or manage. It also allows me to directly link documents, land, and church records to profiles. If I want to see my grandfather on the 1950 Census, it's linked to his profile. If I want to know where my great-grandparents are buried, there's a link to FindAGrave or Billiongraves. So much information is available, but it does take A LOT of time to go through it. You can ask Lyss, I've spent hours going through thousands of documents, working on profiles, adding photos, records, and cataloging family antiques and heirlooms. There's a passion that stirs when I do it. Never did I think that the passion I have for ancestry and genealogy would translate into Lyss and I looking to connect with spirits.

Humanize the Grave. Nice ring to it, right? Well, I think it describes Perceived Paranormal perfectly. When Lyss first asked me to investigate with her, I kind of felt indifferent. I agreed, but honestly, only to make her happy. I was accompanying her as a complete skeptic. In only two investigations, I saw flashlights turn on and off multiple times at different locations with no explanation, as well as REM pod and spirit box activity. I was intrigued, puzzled, and excited all at once. 

I'm hooked on investigating now, and I'm still doing a lot on the history and genealogy side to help us know where we are investigating and who we might be connecting with. I get the perfect balance of field work and at-home research. I look forward to sharing much more with all of you. I will be sharing an article in the next month focusing more on the genealogy work I do behind the scenes. It might allow some of you to do your own research for investigations or just for yourself.

Thanks for reading, and as always, thank you for all the love and support.

-Dan