Melanie Beal Marks, Founder and Principal Researcher of CT House Histories, LLC, has consulted on a wide range of genealogical and historic preservation projects throughout the United States. She is an ardent advocate for threatened and abandoned properties and worked tirelessly to save the Sturges Cottage, a circa 1840 Gothic Revival Gardeners Cottage, and the Gustave Whitehead house, both in Fairfield, Connecticut. Melanie brings fresh insight and a high level of research detail to her projects. Her areas of expertise include historical and genealogical research, National and State Register listing documentation, and research on historical homes and properties. Melanie is a consultant and lecturer for leading preservation organizations in Connecticut, including the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Fairfield Museum and History Center and the Connecticut Gravestone Network, and for various groups in South Carolina. She has conducted workshops and lectures on gravestone preservation, restoration, and art interpretation throughout Connecticut and Ohio. Melanie is an advocate for the preservation and protection of many of Connecticut’s abandoned burying grounds. Her passion and interest in Connecticut’s historic burying grounds has led to many restoration and preservation initiatives in the Greenfield Hill Cemetery, the Old Burying Ground and the Wakeman Cemetery, all in Fairfield, Connecticut. She is a past member of the Easton Cemetery Committee where she helped in the restoration work of the Gilbertown and Center Street cemeteries. Melanie also served on the Advisory Board of the Historical Society of Easton and is a past board member of the Greenfield Hill Village Improvement Society and a past member of the Fairfield Historic District Commission. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Connecticut Historical Society, Kent (Connecticut) Historical Society, Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, (Fairfield, Connecticut), Connecticut Society of Genealogists, Connecticut Ancestry Society, and the Dutchess County Historical Society (New York), the Bluffton (South Carolina) Historic and Preservation Society, the South Carolina Historical Society, the Garvin-Garvey House Advisory Committee, as well as numerous other historical and genealogical societies throughout Connecticut, New York and South Carolina. She recently concluded research into the Garvin-Garvey House in Bluffton, S.C., that has been restored and open to public tours. Her effort in helping to save what is believed to be the earliest known home built by a former slave earned CT House Histories a 2017 South Carolina Historic Preservation Award. She also has lectured in South Carolina on the preservation of the Garvin-Garvey House.

Contact Melanie at cthousehistories@aol.com or call (203) 856-6270.