Meeting Persephone

Both of my grandmothers were very into geneology. When I say "were" I don't mean that they're gone now - no they're both still living - just that the rest of the family didn't support their interests in family lines so they decided to cease the research not knowing what the point would be of continuing if nobody else was going to be interested.

Fortunately the interest is growing. At least for me and I'm grateful that they've both done so much work before me because there are few gaps to fill in at this point. I can continue filling in the newer additions to the family and go back and fill in some missing information from past generations, but most of it is already done.

Where does that leave me? What's the work? Well, now I can create the story of the family line. Yes, there is an obvious story that already exists and is already familiar within the family, but that seldom goes past a few generations. There is also the historic information. But what about when they are both missing?

I'd explained in previous posts the story of my paternal grandfather's family homes. After digging around a bit, I found the very first of my family line to have moved from Germany to Russia under Katherine the Great (or not so great as I call her). I didn't make the discovery - but I did find a name that my Grandmother did not have. Pretty exciting stuff. As a reward, my Grandmother sent me copies of my great-grandmother and great-aunts' naturalization papers as well as a photo of my great-great-great(?) grandfather in his Russian Army uniform. Pretty awesome! So to thank her for doing that, I decided to spend some time focusing on her side of the family too - it isn't as easy for me to get interested in as I really didn't know any of them other than her and her sister even though there are more living than that. Her interests lie only in her apparent tracing of the family to royal lines (which she seems to have found) and now likes to use that as some sort of social leverage which I find hysterical but I don't tell her that. She actually asked me one day what I thought of Charles marrying Camilla and I told her I don't care. "Well they are family you know" she said, clearly disappointed in me. I told her that I have never gotten a Christmas card from them so I don't think it weighs as heavily on them as she thinks it should on me (I wasn't invited to the wedding either). Not a nice thing to say but sometimes I feel the need to lend a little perspective.

Well - I should say that it wasn't as interesting to me until I stumbled upon something. My family was apparently living in Salem Village during the Witch Trials. The strangest part for me was being completely unable to locate any information on them that pertained to the actual trials. They lived there - that is all there is! I can find tons of information about who they married, what they owned, when they died, where they moved to, how much they contributed to different causes, but not a word about the Witch Trials! Now if this were modern Boston their absence in a controversial event would hardly be of notice, but this was 17th century Massachusetts - Salem Village to be specific. We are talking about a community of 500-550 people, and out of those 500-550 people, nearly a quarter of the population was somehow involved as accused, accusers, witness, hanged, confessors, defenders, and judges. Not to mention 2 dogs that were reportedly hung for being bewitched.

My family, apparently very Puritan, were seemingly not involved at all despite there being at least 20-30 of them living in Salem Village at the time. This would be like an entire classroom in a high school not participating at all in the most prolific event ever at their own school. I find that interesting and would like to know what they were doing to avoid the entire scene at the time - and why they were avoiding it! Not only were they not accused, or accusing, they were not witnesses for any activity, they did not defend anyone, and they took no legal part in the event. The thing that I find unusual about that is one of them was a constable for an extended period of time around 7 years prior to the trials yet had NO involvement whatsoever.

How did anyone stand by and not protest? I suppose protesting was risky in that you may be the next accused. I just find it all a bit confusing that one can slip completely under the radar during such a volatile time.

I can say with some small bit of pride that, although they did not appear to have stood up for anyone, they also did not seem to have been entirely comfortable with the climate at the time nor the residual effects because they packed up and moved back to the Attleboro and Rehoboth areas within a few years of the trials ending and never did return to Salem Village. I do seem to have turned up a possible link to a "witch family" in my family's past, but I think that was just by marriage and not likely to lead to anything too surprising.

I'm going to have to ponder this one for awhile. I may be the only one in my family this fascinated by the knowledge - not to mention disturbed by it - but I'll figure things out.