Lynda Ames didn't intend to become a crime novelist, or a historian. She was a licensed practical nurse for 20 years. But things change, and she now finds herself not only as a historian, and the author of a book focusing on a gruesome murder, but also as the cofounder of a new business, Family Routes.

Together with business partner (and fellow Wareham native and librarian Patty Neal) Ames' business offers geneaological and other researching services for clients.

Ames said she started doing geneaological research as a hobby to help her mother.

"My mother was a late-in-life baby and knew nothing about her family," Ames explained. "I wanted to give her a feeling of belonging."

Now she and Neal consider genealogical research as "a hobby gone amuck."

Even while genealogical research has become one of the top hobbies in the United States, she still feels that important events, like the Lawton murder, are being forgotten.

"I have a compulsion to save history so it isn't lost," she said. "There's so much out there and every day it's being lost. There's more technology, but if it doesn't have a button and doesn't plugin and recharge the next generation isn't interested in it...but they will be eventually."