Peter M. Pettingill is an amateur genealogist and historian living in New Hampshire. Growing up, Pete’s father and aunt gave him a love for Maine genealogy and history. He grew up in Nassau County, New York, served three years in the United States Army Military Police Corps, completed a BA in English at SUNY Stony Brook, and spent his career in the commercial insurance claims business 1985 – 2022 when he began to research and write full time. Pettingill uses Ancestry.com and multiple other resources to understand the individuals he researches often traveling to New England towns to visit sites, meet with historical society members, rummage through old books and records, or interview descendants of characters.

It is impossible for me to visit a cemetery and not think “biography.” It is impossible for me to find a cellar hole or another remnant in the New England woods and not envision the people, the families, that once existed there. People think we have it so hard. That everything we are going through in 2023 is so tough. They have no idea what tough looks like without knowing history. I desire to transport the reader to another time and place and not only contrast the differences but to have them see that human nature has not changed at all.