Any Acquired Witches in the Family?



The famed witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts colony, lasted between February 1692 and May 1693. Nearly 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft, including the homeless, the elderly, and even a four-year-old girl. (Dorothy Good) who was arrested but never on trial or harmed. The majority were jailed, and some were hanged. But none of these people in the American colonies who were executed were ever burned alive.

It wasn’t in fact just Salem, but being a witch was accused of colonists in Boston and Cambridge in the Massachusetts colony and in New Haven, Fairfield and Hartford of the Connecticut colony. However, Salem is the most famous. Between 1647 and 1663 there were about 80 people accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem. During that period 13 women and 2 men were executed. Ancestry.com has a database to research about the New England people accused between 1647 and 1693 in the New England colonies.

The most famous were the Salem trials of 1692-1693 which resulted in the executions of 20 people (several were men) with 5 sitting in jail dying there. It was just not colonial Salem but executing of those accused of being witches was very strong in European nations. The idea of burning a witch was common in Europe but hanging a witch was done in the colonies.

The first person to be tried and executed during the 1692 trials in Salem was Bridget Bishop. What is forgotten was that men were also said to be witches, an example being George Burroughs, who was a Congregational pastor and executed in 1692 in Salem.

Locations in Europe during the 1600s accused thousands of people of witchcraft. Available to research is a digital listing of names (some 3,000 to 5,000) of women and men from Scotland between 1658 and 1662 who were accused. (maybe the most compared to any other European region) Most lived in the Scottish Lowlands. Its title is ‘Names of Witches in Scotland, 1658’. It is available on Ancestry.com. With this database, you might be able to see if you had any accused witches in Scotland.

Photos: Salem witch trials; the great Scottish witch hunt; notice of witch trial 1692 and Surnames of those accused in Salem.

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

Location of 1692 Witch Hangings

The Colonial Connecticut Witch Trials

Old Boston

< Return To Blog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.