was hanged for being a witch.

from the ex's side. i just found it yesterday, susannah (north) martin. what a shocker!

an excerpt:

Susannah Martin

The sixty-seven year old widow Susannah Martin of Amesbury was hanged as a witch on July 19, 1692 on the basis of the testimony of the accusing circle of girls of Salem Village and other neighbors. Although she maintained her innocence to the end, a previous history of witchcraft accusations and the momentum of Salem's accusations carried her to the gallows. Martin figures in historian Carol Karlsen's account of the Salem outbreak as an example of a woman who was easily targeted as a threat to the orderly transmission of property down the paternal line because of Martin's role in an ongoing court dispute over her father's will.

apparently, her deceased husband's daughter was the one disputing his will. as always, it's all about the money!

Origins of Witchcraft" by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. May be hard to find as was published in 1974 by the Harvard University Press. A whole different side of what most of us learned about that era.

It seems that Rebecca Nurse owned land next to my ancestor or to his in laws and that they wanted her land. So there would have been an ulterior motive to have her convicted and sentenced to death for witchcraft.

I understand a reasonable amount about the causes of the witchcraft trials in England and in American. But I still don't have to be happy about my ancestors' involvement.

One of hubby's ancestors lost a wife to that mess. I'll have to see if I can find more information about her.

kind of what the book shows. Factions developed over economic issues and got out of hand. This is one very interesting period in our history.

I have the book because I was cleaning out the hay barn on a farm we rented and there were a bunch of old books thrown in the corner. This one was one of them. I have kept it ever since.

the climate of hate we have in our nation today much of it really sounded familiar. I don't think it would go that far though. At least I hope not.

Some of the right wing candidates have been involved with encouraging witch hunting and killing in African countries as well as killing of homosexuals.

I believe it could go that far and that is what worries me about the people claiming both parties are the same. Maybe they are both controlled substantially by big business but so far the Democratic politicians have not gone off the deep end with the religious mania many of the GOP right wing nuts have.

It's frightening to think about.

After my dad died, we were going through some of her old family photos with my grandmother, his mother, who was about 95 at the time.

She pulled out a photo of a group of young men dressed in Nazi garb, prominent swastikas and what I believe were SS or SS-like symbols -- they were her nephews, sons of her two brothers that stayed behind when she emigrated to America in the 1920s. So, they were my dad's first cousins from "the Old Country" - Croatia, and about the same age as he was, although he never knew or met them.

These guys, based on their uniforms, were members of the Croat Iron Guards during WWII, the military branch of the pro-Nazi puppet regime in Yugoslavia, and the Iron Guards were involved in numerous crimes against humanity in the Balkans during the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia. Whether or not they all survived the war, or if they were prosecuted afterwards for their participation I don't know -- my grandmother never went back to Croatia after she emigrated, and her relatives never came here, she just corresponded by letter for many years on an occasional basis. She didn't really know their specific stories. It was probably swept under the rug after WWII anyway, since the Communists that took over under Tito were bitter enemies of the fascists.

Her comment was "my, weren't they handsome in their uniforms." My comment was "OMG!"

Needless to say, that photo is no longer part of any album.

Or fought in the Civil War. I long ago decided that since I cannot change the past, the best I can do is to document things factually and to not hide those facts. After all, if we don't teach future generations about these things, how can they attempt to not repeat the mistakes?

Heck, being a white American is a source of shame. We took this continent from the inhabitants and tied our best to kill them off, then imported slaves and treated their descendants badly. But I didn't do any of those things myself and I can't change what was done so I must live with the knowledge of past evils.

that owned slaves & some that deserted from their Confederate Regiments. Also some that fought with the Union. The ones that deserted were of particular interest, apparently one was found by the Home Guard & executed, leading his sweetheart to carry on, but she never married (either broken hearted or lack of available partners as the war did reduce the pickings by a goodly number).

Some of them did not own slaves, though most did. All of Mom's family were Southerners from before the Revolutionary War, Dad's lived in New York and Michigan. None of Dad's family were of the right age - his great grandfather is listed in the draft list, but he had a family and was never drafted.

But Mom's great great grandfather enlisted along with his brothers. He died of pneumonia six weeks after his only son was born and never got to see his child. Some of his brothers died, too. His father enlisted at the age of 62 but I don't know if he ever actually fought.

On another branch, her great great great grandfather ended up with one surviving son, two widowed daughters and a widowed daughter in law with all their children living with him after the war. In his petition for restoration of rights, he claimed he was supporting fourteen grandchildren. He also claimed to have fought in the War of 1812, to never have supported secession, and to have never paid to support the Confederacy. He's interesting in that he also has a link to the Revolutionary War - he gave an affidavit to help a neighbor get a pension for his service in that war.

It's no wonder that Mom's family never glorified the Old South - they lost too many family in the "War of Northern Aggression".

to the slave owners in VA, I haven't traced their Civil War service, although one member in Illinois did serve in the Blackhawk War for a bit. He also had 4 wives & 20+ children, so an interesting character.

My Dad's (my Dad's Mother's side) family was the one of which I spoke and although southerners did not to my knowledge own slaves. The 2 brothers (the elder my GG Grandfather) enlisted the their local NC regiment, served for a bit and eventually the older one deserted and moved with his family away, we think with a stop in Indiana before Illinois. The younger served on for a few months, then was apparently home for the harvest (service was a bit fluid around that time of year) and was caught by the Home Guard at a corn shucking. We understand that this branch of the family came to the area through a Revolutionary war land grant, but haven't traced anything of yet.

On the Dad's (Dad's side) I visited my G Grandfather's grave in Ohio a few years ago & found a GAR marker, so I am assuming this Irish immigrant served somewhere in the Union Army, but haven't nailed it down yet. There are a couple of possibilities, but I really can't be certain.

They have National Archives records and periodically allow free look-ups of different periods of military records. Usually WWII around Dec. 7, others around Veteran's Day.

Virginia State Archives had records online for free, which are really good for locating colonial era land grants - start here http://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/ Then look at Collections by Topic. You can also search wills and estate administrative records: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/opac/willsabout.htm Go to the Index to Wills and Administrations from that page.

Lots of North Carolina counties had land records online going all the way back to colonial times. And the state has a lot indexed but few actual scans online: http://mars.archives.ncdcr.gov/BasicSearch.aspx

Find A Grave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi often has photos of graves and markers and if you are lucky someone will have added genealogical info to the page for your ancestor. If there are no pictures, you can put in a request for a picture and someone may be generous and take one and post it to the site.

Also check http://usgenweb.org/ and http://usgwarchives.net/ for the areas where your ancestors lived - depending on the specific county and families, there could be a wealth of information. Since the information is all put online by volunteers, it is hit or miss if someone has uploaded what you need, but I have found some good data at those sites.

Other than Fold3, those are all free resources and if you watch for the free weeks at Fold3 you can get a lot of information without spending a dime.

and do some digging.

not destroy the picture. We cannot change history. Besides the "witch" I also have KKK in my family line and slave holders as well as a black line in the modern family. We take what we have.

Quite a few of my relatives were participants in the witch trials to some degree or other, including three of my distant great-grandfathers who were jurors. David Nelson, owner of the website Bloodlines of Salem wrote: “You probably know already that besides Ayer, you are also related to other trials participants including Andrews, Peabody, Perley, Cogswell, Foster and Perkins.”

At the virginia.edu website is the testimony of my distant aunt and uncle Samuel and Deborah Perley against “witch” Elizabeth Howe. The Perleys’ daughter fell ill and insisted that a neighbor, Elizabeth Howe, had caused the illness through witchcraft. The daughter lingered on for a couple of years, then died of her illness. Elizabeth Howe was hanged as a witch. She didn’t stand a chance at trial, since Samuel’s brother Thomas Perley, my 7th great-grandfather, was a witch trials juror.

( Samuel Perley et ux v. Elizabeth How )

the first of june 1692

the dePosition of Samuel Perley and his wife aged about 52 an his wife about 46 years of age


We having a dauter about ten years of age being in a sorowful condition this # being sone after a faling out that had bene betwen jeams how and his wife and # miself our daughter tould us that it was jeams hows wife that afflicted her both night and day som times comPlainig of being Pricked with Pins and sometimes faling doun into dredful fits and often sai i could never aflict a dog as goode how aflicts me mi wife and i did often chide her for naming goode how being loth her name should be defamed but our daughter would tell us that though we would not beleve her now yet you will know it one day we went to several doctors and thai: tould us that she was under an evil hand: our daughter tould us that when she came nere the fire or water this witch Puls me: in and was often soreli burnt and she would tel us what cloaths she wore and would sai there she goes and there she goes and now she is gone into the oven and at these sights faling doun into dreadful fits and thus our daughter continuing about two or three years constantli afirming to the last that this goode how that is now seised was the cause of her sorows and so Pine d a wai to skin and bone and ended her sorowful life, and this we can atest uPon oath ruth Perleys mark

Sam'll Pearly and his wife declared the above written to be the truth upon oath after this the above said goode how had a mind to joyn to iPswich Church thai being unsatisfied sent to us to bring in what we had against her and when we had decleared to them what we knew thai se cause to Put a stoP to her coming into the Church within a few dais after I had a cow wel in the morning as far as we knew this cow was taken strangli runing about like a mad thing a litle while and then run into a great Pon -- and drouned herself and # as sone as she was dead mi sons and miself towed her to the shore and she stunk so that we had much a doe to flea her.

We, having a daughter about ten years of age being in a sorrowful condition, this being soon after a falling out that had been between James Howe and his wife and myself, our daughter told us that it was James Howe’s wife that afflicted her both night and day, our daughter sometimes complaining of being pricked with pins and sometimes falling down into dreadful fits, and often said, “I could never afflict a dog as Goody Howe afflicts me.” My wife and I did often chide her for naming Goody Howe, being loathe that her name should be defamed, but our daughter would tell us that though we would not believe her now, “Yet you will know it one day.” We went to several doctors and they told us that she was under an evil hand. Our daughter told us that when she came near the fire or water, “This witch pulls me in” and our daughter was sorely burned and she would tell us what clothes Goody Howe wore and our daughter would say, “There she goes, and there she goes, and now she is gone into the oven,” and at these sights falling down into dreadful fits and thus our daughter, continuing about two or three years constantly affirming to the last that this Goody Howe that is now seized (under arrest) was the cause of her sorrows, pined away to skin and bone and ended her sorrowful life, and this we can attest upon oath.

Samuel Perley and his wife declared the above written to be the truth upon oath. After this, the above said that Goody How had a mind to join to Ipswich Church. Samuel’s statement: They (probably the church elders), being unsatisfied, sent to us to bring in what we had against her and when we had declared to them what we knew, they saw cause to put a stop to her coming into the church. Within a few days, I had a cow that was well in the morning as far as we knew. This cow was taken to strangely running about like a mad thing for a little while, and then ran into a great pond – and drowned herself and as soon as she was dead, my sons and myself towed her to the shore and she stunk so that we had much ado to flee her.

He wrote The History of Salem and published it himself in the 192os in three volumes. Before that, he published The Essex Antiquarian magazine which published a lot of the information from the county where Salem is.

A huge amount of the information I am finding about Henry Kinne (aka Keany - Keeny - Keine - Kene - Keney - Kenne - Kening - Kennee - Kenney - Kenninge - Kenny - Kennye - Keny - Keyney - Kine - Kiney - Kinne - Kinney) is from those publications.

It's sad that humans have not learned from the past. Now there are witch trials and killings happening in more parts of the world - and the same fundamentalist mentality is encouraging this idiocy. Whether or not some fungus or contamination was responsible for the original claims of witchcraft, the witchcraft mania went on far longer than can be fully attributed to those causes. And they certainly cannot be the cause of every witchcraft craze that has happened over the years.

It needs to end. I doubt it ever will in certain Mideastern countries. Here in the U.S. there are wacked-out fundies - mainly the self-named "neo-puritans" - who would like to get the witch insanity started again in America. A few years ago, a Mary Ayer Parker descendant who's a relative of mine contacted me through email, and one of his comments was that he didn't think that all of those condemned for witchcraft in 1692 in Salem were really witches. The implication was that he believed that some of them might have really been witches. I don't know what he thought about our Mary. I didn't email him back.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think belief in witchcraft and persecution of suspected "witches" will end in some areas of the world. Here in America, the embers are smoldering, waiting to be stoked.

As for Sidney Perley, I think I read online somewhere years ago that he's descended from Allan Perley, as I am, but I don't know which of Allan's sons is next in Sidney's line. Mine is Thomas Perley, Sr., witch trials juror. I refer to Sidney Perley's work a lot, and his History of Boxford has helped me fill in some blanks pertaining to some of my ancestors' dates of death and so on.

But it won't happen in my lifetime! I just hope I don't live long enough to see that kind of hysteria really get started.

I'm so happy I waited to get back to genealogy until so much was available online. I never had the patience to do the research via correspondence and these days I can't do the courthouse and graveyard research Mom did - my knees won't take it. A lot of the old books are now at the Internet Archives or on Google Books - or, as with the Perley History of Salem, on a research site.

When Mom was researching back in the 50s and 60s, those old historical works had to be requested through interlibrary loan or were only available for limited access at a very few libraries. Now, I can sit at my desk, and quickly locate the entries of use to my particular lines.

when I wanted to do research like this, I had to request information from old documents from our state library, and I had to specify why I wanted the info. Times have changed, thanks to home computers.

As for witch hysteria starting again in America, I doubt it ever will. There will always be nutty people who believe in witchcraft and the like, but there will always be more people who don't. I hope.

I tried going to the State library here (Tallahassee) and researching. What with traffic, parking and logistics inside the library, each trip took pretty much an entire day and I really didn't get a lot of information. So many of those old books were not well indexed, and of course there was no comprehensive indexing of the entire collection.

Occasionally since then, I have tried looking up ancestors online, the last time in the late 1990s. In the last decade, the change in access to information has made a tremendous leap. It's not just the pay sites like Ancestry, though they make it a little easier, but the USGenWeb type sites,local history association sites, and individuals putting their information online. It's made a huge difference in the ease of finding information. Even if there is no direct access to a reference, chances are someone who did have access has posted the information online.

As for the witch hunting hysteria, I think back to the craze about recovered memories with allegations of molestation and even child sacrifice based only on those dubious claims. People were arrested, tried and spent years in prison based on hypnotically recovered memories that have since been proven to be baseless. There was no hard evidence, no other witnesses, but people's lives were ruined. I think that is a form of witch hysteria, especially the allegations of child sacrifice.

Also remember that for years, "experts" were traveling around the country warning law enforcement agencies about the "Satanic cults" that were perverting children and killing people. It took years but eventually the FBI came out and acknowledged that there was no evidence of these "Satanic cults" and the claims of sacrifice.

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/remembering_dangerously/
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/recovered_memories_cross_the_oceans/
http://www.fmsfonline.org/

So the possibility of a new extreme is not that remote. Maybe this time in this country people accused of witchcraft will not be put to death, but people's lives have already been ruined by allegations with no objective evidence.

His maternal line were abolitionists. I hated finding my Huffman ancestors on the slave schedules in Louisiana/Texas, but have always hoped that the maternal line made up for it (abolitionists who fought for the North - one of which was interred at Andersonville - Thaddeus Waters).

Of course, my mother's line (both maternal and paternal) seemed to be kind of "keep your head down and stay out of the fight" sorts of people. They didn't fight for either the north or the south and seemed to just want to farm.

For a long time I felt guilty about the slaves, but in truth, I would never own slaves (or testify against a witch) or kill someone, so I don't feel like I need to make excuses for my ancestors. They were what they were... I am what I am and it's not a slave owner.

(But, whether you wish you weren't related to them or not, it's still a good find!).

She came from west central Alabama - her ancestors arrived there between 1817 and 1834 and all came originally from North or South Carolina, some bringing their slaves with them. I've written other messages about her family during the Civil War and how many of them died.

The really disturbing ancestor as far as I am concerned was one of the earliest and most influential Baptist ministers in Alabama. The church where he was ordained in South Caroline prohibited their elders and ministers from being slave owners - I think that is one reason he left and went to Alabama. He started one church, then left that one to start another. While he was not pastor of the first church, a slave got permission to preach to other slaves who could not get to the church to worship. Then my ancestor returned to the church and prohibited that slave from preaching. The end result was that that slave left that church - I don't know what happened to him since this story comes from the history of that church.

That same preacher ancestor was responsible for the formation of the Alabama Baptist Convention and encouraged the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention though it was not actually formed until after his death. When I think of the evil that has been done in the name of the Southern Baptist Convention, I wish my ancestor had been a wiser, more tolerant man.

csziggy, I stumbled across this blog while looking for information about my ancestors who played a role in the witchcraft trials. I believe we are cousins based on the people you described.

Do you have or know of a family history book written shortly after 1900? We have encountered six or seven families who still have the book. Our family has two.It is on line through the University of Wisconsin, I think. The writers believed that though our common ancestor, Allen lived in Wales, the family originated in Denmark and migrated to Normandy The later went to England with William the Conqueror.

My mother's family were Vikings. Some other relatives were Swedes or Fins. The Sami people of northern Scandinavia are indigenous people who are genetically very close to Cro Magnons. They also share some Asian genes.

Christians and invading governments force ably tried to destroy their shaministic religion. Shamen were burned as were others who refused to submit to the Christian religion. Their ceremonial drums were destroyed and sacred groves cut down. Some were sold into slavery in New Sweden and later the the British colonies.

The church has apologized and they now help Sami revive their culture. Some still practice a combination of Christianity and the old religion. In some places, they never gave up paganism.

The ancestor in the witch trials in Salem was Henry Kinney (Keeney, Kenney, etc). I haven't come on a family history about that family published at the time you say.

Henry had a son, Thomas who married Elizabeth Knight. They had a son, Thomas who moved to Preston (now Griswold), Connecticut, and married Martha Cox. They had a son James, who married Sarah Herrick. Their daughter, Sarah married Henry Hewitt, which brings me to my paternal grandmother's paternal line. If you're related to Hewitts or Hughitts, we're probably related - especially the second spelling.

What is interesting is that Sarah Herrick's great grandfather, Henry Herrick, also testified against witched in Beverly, Massachusetts but he and his fellows later regretted doing so and recanted their testimony.

Now for the Southern line - my mother's side does not go back to the Salem Witch Trial people so far as I have been able to trace. The Alabama relatives I talked about in the message you directly responded to almost all lived in Perry County, Alabama and neighboring counties. They include Crows and Tuckers (the ministers of the family), Kynerds (Kinards, Kennards, etc), Hoppers, Rhineharts, Tubbs, Fikes, Harlans, and Cooks. Nearly all came from South Carolina, some from North Carolina.

I was specifically talking about Charles Crow in the immediately previous post - he was an influential preacher in Alabama and his influence has continued through the Alabama Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention which grew from it.

Are your Huffmans originally from Botetourt, Craig Co, Va? If so, we may share some ancestors.

"common" family history says that they came from NC -> MS -> LA -> TX. But I've only been able to verify on my own back to MS. I know that my Jacob Huffman (b. around 1765) came to Natchez MS on a flatboat with wife and 3 children in 1791 "from Kentucky" and was enumerated on the 1792 Spanish census. His son, Robert Huffman, married in Opelousas, LA in 1813. It's stated that he is the son of Jacob Huffman and Anna Kobasson on the marriage certificate.

Some of my cousin's link that Jacob Huffman to a family out of Alamance County, NC, but that Jacob Huffman/Hoffman appears to have stayed put and married a Barbara, so I don't know how he would have ended up in Mississippi with a wife named Anna.

What's with the "goody" prefix put ahead of women's surmanes, e.g. "Goody Nurse"?

I've heard this before, and I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

It just sounds so odd, if you will, in the context, not only of the present day, but within the culture of

these Puritan folk, whom one imagines finding very little "goody" in life as they lived it.

Every time I hear it (and yes, I distinctly recall its use in The Crucible) I'm tempted to start

singing that oldie from the Fifties "Goody, Goody", which would, of course, be jarringly at odds

with the context of it's original use.

people accused of witchcraft -- Sibley Family. I wish I'd made copies of that account in the book I read it in.

That looks very interesting, I will definitely check that out!