Margo Burns

Margo Burns is a historian (A.B., Mount Holyoke College, 1980, M.A., University of New Hampshire, 1991) specialising in the Salem witch trials and related events, especially those in North Andover, whose historiographical neglect she endeavours to amend. She is an Associate Editor and Project Manager of the book Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (Bernard Rosenthal, Editor, Cambridge University Press, 2009). She currently resides in New Hampshire.

Although not directly related to any of North Andover's witchcraft-accused, Burns is the great-x10-granddaughter of Rebecca Nurse, one of the foremost protagonists of the trials in Salem; indeed, it was Burns's initial interest in that controversy that led her to explore its North Andover analogue. She puts the total accused at 153.

Burns appears in two history documentaries about the Salem witchcraft trials: "Salem Witch Hunt: Examine the Evidence" (2011) for the Essex National Heritage Commission and the National Park Service, and "Salem: Unmasking the Devil" (2011) with author Katherine Howe, discussing the case of Rebecca Nurse, for the National Geographic Channel and the BBC, where it aired under the alternate title "Salem Witch Trials Conspiracy.