by AGS member Frankie Ewing
During the Covid pandemic, I have been watching a lot of genealogy webinars. One I especially enjoyed in 2021 was entitled “What’s My Lineage?” which discussed the many lineage societies one can apply to join if you can prove your descent from a member ancestor.
Some of these societies, such as the DAR and Mayflower Society, are well known. Others are more obscure: Society of Indiana Pioneers, Descendants of Early Quakers.
The one that got my attention was called Associated Daughters of Early American Witches. If you can prove descent from someone who was accused by the church or government authorities or tried or convicted of witchcraft or wizardry in Colonial America before 1700, you can apply for membership.
I knew that my eighth great- grandmother, Mary (Ayer) Parker, was hanged as a witch in Salem, MA, in 1692, so I contacted the President General of the Witches Society, and she sent me an application.
The application process is just as rigorous as that of the Mayflower Society and DAR. One must document birth, marriage and death connections for each generation. I worked on my application sporadically for several months and finally sent in a thick packet of documents in November.
I was notified that they had recently had a huge number of applications and that there were forty-two ahead of me. They estimated that it would take three months to get to mine.
In late February 2022, I was delighted to see my name on the list of new members in their newsletter.
Interestingly, my daughters, who were not overly impressed about our Mayflower lineage or the DAR, now are excited about the prospect of joining the witches!
Photo attribution: Witchcraft at Salem Village. Engraving. The central figure in this 1876 illustration of the courtroom is usually identified as Mary Walcott. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
