07/22/2023
If you're up near Salem, Mass., on vacation this summer, be sure to visit Salem. It's rated as a top tour.
YOUR ANCESTORS MADE HISTORY, INCLUDING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS?
Nothing is more personal than finding out that your own ancestors were a big part of history. You’ll never see that event in the same way.
I’ve traced countless trees for clients that found ancestors who were in George Washington’s to Napoleon’s armies, were elected governors or senators, or were related to scores of major figures in American history. Some had relatives on both sides at Appomattox. Some had grandparents who accompanied major explorers, or founded cities themselves. Some fled the Irish Potato Famine, or England’s Protestant revolt against Catholics, or N**i atrocities across Europe. Many were pioneers, the very first person who achieved ...The list of true stories is endless.
But nothing quite grabs your attention like finding that your ancestors were involved in the Salem Witch Trials.
If your ancestors were living in Massachusetts anywhere near the late 1600s, get suspicious and track them further. In those days, the state’s entire population was only 50,000 people - which basically means everybody knew everybody and there’s a fair chance they were related to someone in the trials - or part of them.
The madness of Salem Village, in which innocent citizens were accused of witchcraft by their neighbors, was a contagion that lasted from February 1692 to May 1693. It spread to other nearby towns, so look for Salem Witch Trial relatives in those places, too — in Amesbury, ANDOVER, Boston, Beverly, Billerica, BOXFORD, Charlestown, Chelmsford, Gloucester, Haverhill, IPSWICH, LYNN, Malden, Marblehead, Peabody (then part of Salem), READING, ROWLEY, Salem Towne (nearby), SALEM VILLAGE (the historic witch trial village, now called Danvers), Salisbury, TOPSFIELD and Wenham.
I capitalized the towns in the list where I've found families with members who either were accused of witchcraft or accused others of being witches.
So far, all found on trees were the accused, not the accusers. The exception was a teenager briefly accused of being a witch who did accuse someone else in a panic; but that's not premeditated, as were the real culprits of Salem. If you think about it, since none of them were really witches who flew off and escaped, I'd hope for falsely accused witches in my family line vs the dishonest accusers who got them killed.
Accounts vary, but more than 150 were accused of being witches and 20 were killed, mostly women. Most of the accusers were Puritans.
Ironically, accused witches who denied that they were witches (and often affirming their Christian faith) were the ones who were hung by the Christians. Many historians believe the accused witches were victims of mob mentality, mass hysteria and scapegoating.
In your genealogy search, check the spouses and cousins on your tree, too. If you find one Salem tie, you're likely to find many. The horrific story of Salem often involves overlapping families — and multiple heroes who spoke against the injustices. The bravest clergymen and citizens stood up to save the accused, which sometimes got them accused as well. Strong, successful women who were land owners or who had important jobs, such as midwives, were particularly likely to be accused.
Although the "witches" soon were exonerated and government officials apologized for the witch trials, after 1693, many families involved changed their surname spellings. So you might not find exact surname matches. You might notice that in the 1690s, your Massachusetts family significantly or frequently changed the spelling of its surname. Those are trends I saw on trees.
Another trend is that witch-trial associated families moved away from there after the trials, seeking anonymity.
If you are related to a Salem witch, you are in excellent company. Reportedly, so are/were Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, astronaut Alan Shepard, Red Cross founder Clara Barton, suffragette Susan B. Anthony, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Ellen DeGeneres, Halle Berry, Kit Harington, Richard Gere, Kyra Sedgwick, Edward Norton, Ted Danson, John Lithgow, Hugh Grant, Ethan Hawke, Claire Danes, Paris Hilton, Elizabeth Montgomery, Warren Buffett, Lady Di, Tennessee Williams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Laura Ingalls-Wilder, Noel Coward, Walt Disney, Georgia O'Keeffe, Roy Rogers, Hellen Keller, Robert E. Lee, the Wright Brothers, The Beach Boys brothers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Anderson Cooper, Sandra Day O’Conner, Alexander Hamilton and U.S. Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Fillmore, Hayes, Cleveland, Arthur, Harding, Taft, Hoover, Nixon, Ford, Carter, both Adams, both Harrisons, both Roosevelts, and both Bushes!
I have a direct-line grandmother - Ann Greenslade (aka Greenslit) Pudeator – who was hung as a witch, an aunt Sarah Towne Bridges who was accused and whose two sisters were executed. (They were the three sisters remembered in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible). Another Bridges aunt’s own uncle, Rev. Francis Dane, had been accused with his family of witchcraft because he spoke out early and often in Salem against the accusers and the concept of persecuting witches.
(Francis’ wife ties to author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s line of descent. Red Cross founder Clara Barton, a cousin on my tree, also is related to the Bridges family.)
I’m proud my relatives were on the right side of history at Salem and think of my ancestors there when, in a much more insignificant way, I try to fight injustice today.
There are good sources online to find names and biographical details of people associated with The Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and 1693, including the persecutors. If you cannot trace your ancestry back to the 1600s or even earlier, Find Family Trees can help. Just visit our website at www.FindFamilyTrees.com or call me, Leslie Myers, genealogist and owner of Find Family Trees.
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[Photo: Ann Pudeator’s memorial marker in Salem, Mass.]
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