Stories That Live In Us
Georgia: Two Lives, Two Coasts, One Massive Secret (with Julie Merrill) | Episode 115
Jun 11, 2026
Season 2
Episode 115
Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist
A dapper playboy, a broken plantation safe, an embezzlement scheme, and a grandfather who completely vanished. What happened to William H. Wheeler? 🕵️♂️🔍
When an 83-year-old client named Jane came to Julie Merrill, an accredited genealogist with Ancestry ProGenealogists, looking for clues about her missing grandfather, she had no idea the search would lead away from Washington state, straight past California, and deep into a high-society scandal in 1890s Georgia. Armed with DNA clusters and old newspaper archives, Julie chased down this 100-year-old family history mystery and uncovered a jaw-dropping double life.
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