Maureen Wlodarczyk (www.past-forward.com) is an author, columnist, genealogist, speaker, and admitted history addict. She is also an officer of the Flannery Clan organization based in Dublin, Ireland and a member of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey, Hudson County Historical and Genealogical Society and the Irish-American Writers and Artists organization. Maureen writes a genealogy-related column "History & Mystery: Perfect Together" for the e-magazine Garden State Legacy (www.gardenstatelegacy.com) and is a contributor to Irish Lives Remembered e-magazine (www.irishlivesremembered.com). Maureen's first book, Past-Forward: A Three-Decade & Three-Thousand Mile Journey Home is the story of her 30-year search for her grandmother's Irish ancestral roots and the surprising and poignant discoveries made along the way. Her second book, Young & Wicked: The Death of a Wayward Girl, is the true story of star-crossed first generation Irish-American lovers, one of them a second cousin to Maureen's great-grandmother, who grew up in Jersey City, both becoming young petty criminals who fled to the Bowery in New York City in 1893 to avoid arrest where their life together met a violent end. Maureen's third book, Canary in a Cage: The Smith-Bennett Murder Case is the third book in Maureen's trilogy of true family stories of the 19th century. In 1878, a Jersey City policeman is found bludgeoned and stabbed to death in his own bed, supposedly while his young wife lay beside him unaware. Suspicion immediately falls on the wife and her suspected teenage paramour. Did a twenty-something Jersey girl and farmer's daughter turn city-girl killer? Maureen is also the author of Jersey! Then . . . Again, a collection of 36 short stories about New Jersey historic people and events. Suffragettes, boxers, hurricanes, gangs, hot air balloonists, con artists, politicians, inventors, women in the war effort, military heroes and more -- it all happened in New Jersey!