MAKING LISTS WITH ANCESTRY'S MYTREETAGS:THE WITCH LISTS

 I wrote recently about using the Ancestry.com MyTreeTags to make a list of my ancestors who were all blacksmiths. Then a few weeks back I bought a book, In The Shadow Of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Hite. Now I have many ancestors who lived in Andover, Ma. during that period and some were involved in the Trials. Two of my direct ancestors wereb among the accused, one of whom was hung. I also knew some were witnesses against those accused. I decided I wanted to make lists of who was who.

Mr. Hite's book is excellent and the many Appendices about the families involved were very helpful.Using them I created Custom Tags on my Ancestry.com tree and then tagged each Ancestor ancestor and relagtive with the appropriate Tag. These are the labels I used:

Accused Witch
Executed as Witch
Opposed Witch Trials
Witch Trial Constable
Witch Trial Juror
Witch Trial Witness
Witch victim

There are some complications, because in some cases an ancestor was an accuser but late came to oppose the trials and signed a petition against the Trials. It's also a work in progess as I add collateral lines. But it's a start. I call them the "witch lists" and I'll discuss them in the next few posts.

And if you have relatives from the Witch Trial era who lived in Andover, ou should get a copy of Richard Hite's book.