Unless you've lived under a cloud, or in a bubble for the past century - or are part of Gen Z or lower, or have never seen the movie Hocus Pocus - then you will no doubt of heard of Salem, the city in Massachusetts, USA. A lot of people will have heard of it but have no idea why, other than it's to do with witches! Primarily this is what it has become world-renowned for, and why it's got an entry onto this site, but the city itself really is so much more than that side of it's history. If you ever get the chance to visit you really should add it to your 'to do' list. The Bakeshop on the corner of Bridge and Pearl street does the best cream cakes you will find anywhere. Get there early though or the queue will be halfway down the road! Make time to wile away a few hours at Salem Willows. Portside diner on the corner of River and Liberty street is like a small step back in time with great food those of us from outside the USA would think of as traditionally American. I could be here all day telling you different places to visit, but this isn't a travel blog.
I cannot for the life of me remember when I first heard about Salem and what went on there but I feel as though it's something I've known of throughout my whole life - my entry on DNA might go someway to explaining why I feel that way. Upon entering high school (known as Secondary school in my day) we were forced to take Religious Education studies. A lesson I absolutely despised. An a non-believer of any kind of god this really couldn't have been a worse lesson for me - thankfully I only had to take it for two years; by the age of thirteen it had been written into the annals of history.
Trying to make one lesson a little more interesting to us our teacher suggested we make contact with a church - one which those in the class were not already a member of - to see if we could learn anything about their particular religion. We didn't have the internet back then so most of the class chose to contact churches within our local area. I, at that time, had done something I shouldn't have done. Nothing bad, nothing which harmed another person, but bad enough I had a guilty conscience, so I decided I would reach out to a catholic church. Not any old church though for I was concerned contacting one in my area - of which there are not many - what I had done may get back to someone I know and then I would have been in deep shit, so I headed off to our local reference library to see if I could find something a little further afield. As an avid reader I also picked up a couple of library books whilst I was there.
Never one to stick to-the-norm, I found myself in an occult section whereby I found a book about the witch trials. Having a read through my pre-teenage brain said "ooh, you know what you should do? Find a church in Salem to see if they have a witch and you can say a few 'Hail Mary's' and be forgiven" so that's what I did. With the assistance of a very lovely librarian I found myself with a choice of many, many different churches in the Salem area. Eventually I chose the one attached a St Mary's Cemetery because there was a St Mary's Church just up the road from where my parents had once lived. I wrote to them, they never got back to me so I never got to know how many of those Hail Mary's I should have said but I forgave myself decades ago so all is good in my world.
Talking of my world, let's then fast forward thirty-years; my brother got into genealogy - a passion we both now share together - and began to research our family tree. He's gone back to the 1500's on my Mum's Maternal side but it was her paternal side which really peeked my interest. Imagine how it felt when we discovered our Maternal Grandfather was no only born and raised, but also buried in Salem! Where is he buried? Only St Mary's churchyard, which houses the very church I had written to all those years before. Coincidence, or that small spark of DNA which triggered it for me?
Let's now move on to just last year. Pootling around the internet - as you do - working out where to take my niece and how to fit in everywhere she wants to visit in Salem (she's not blood related but is a huge fan of Hocus Pocus so I have promised I will visit with her; we're going to the proper 'tourist' bit!) when I came across a page on the witch trials with a name I'd not seen before. On the list that is, for it's a surname I have spent my whole life with. Oh yes, it now transpires - a lot of research has been done on this matter since I found the name - that on my paternal side I am, in fact, related to one of the women tried and found guilty of witchcraft during the whole witch trial period!
If my DNA theory is correct - which I obviously believe it to be - then it would explain how I knew and was fascinated by a subject I should have known nothing about as such a youngling.
There are countless websites, books and magazines all depicting Salem and the witch trials that took place back in 1692. This link is from Britannica but you can do your own search - I use DuckDuckGo - to find the many hundreds of thousands of pages there must be out there.
At the time of writing this I haven't got around to listening to the How Haunted pod when they visited Salem but I am intrigued to find out how they got on.
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