Courtney McInvale is the founder of Seaside Shadows Haunted History Tours LLC based out of Mystic, Connecticut and offering walking tours and boat tours throughout the southern New England region. She is a licensed tour guide, published author and actual descendant of accused witches. She is a Connecticut native and Courtney spent 5 years in DC after completing her studies at Catholic University of America and the University College Dublin where she studied abroad, majoring in International Relations. After earning her degree, she worked for the FBI as an analyst -- having been influenced by her time interning at NCIS for the Cold Case Homicide Unit-- She then spent 2 years in Vermont working for Dept of Homeland Security and honing her investigative skills. Courtney also spent many months in Ireland in study and visiting, a place rich with histories and hauntings alike! She avidly studies histories of Celtic cultures, specifically Ireland and Scotland, specializing in rebellions. Her other specialty is early America during war time and she spends her time studying the American Civil War and American Revolution – investigation, writing and focusing on the ghosts of the bloody conflicts in early America. Her written books are focused on these wars and she has spent time all the way from Bunker Hill to Yorktown and Gettysburg to Andersonville. Courtney is an empathic spirit medium -- able to feel, see and communicate with spirits. She has frequently had experiences involving the paranormal. In Courtney's childhood home in central Connecticut, in a town called East Hampton numerous paranormal occurrences happened. The events were so extreme that the Warren family came to investigate and exorcise the house during her teenage years there. Due to her haunting past, and ability to see and communicate with spirit, she has always taken an interest in the unknown and has now put her sensitivities, investigative skills, love of history, and writing aspirations to work. Courtney is also a realist amongst all things. That means you will get an excited, thought-provoking and spooky tour while at the same time being inundated with historical facts to corroborate all the haunting occurrences surrounding the Mystic, New London, Salem and battlefield areas far and wide. Courtney has written two books for Arcadia Publishing and the History Press including Haunted Mystic (2014), Revolutionary War Ghosts of Connecticut (2016) and her third book, Civil War Ghosts of Connecticut will be released with Haunted Road Media in Fall 2021, the first in a series focused on the American Civil War which has been Courtney’s center of study recently. Courtney has been featured as a historian and medium on Travel Channel’s Portals to Hell and as a medium on Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures. She hosts paranormal investigations and historical site fundraisers annually. Courtney loves spending time with her husband, Marty,
her loving pets, her sisters and wee niece & goddaughter.. She is a sucker
for a good period drama or true crime documentary and in free time can be found
listening to classic rock or 90’s pop and watching and obsessing over Outlander
or Vikings.
