Strange Genealogy Discovery

General Discussion
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This is about my 9th great Grandmother: Suzanna Towne/Hayward’s brother, William Towne had 3 daughters involved in the Salem witchcrafts:

  1. 1st daughter, Rebecca Towne/Nurse born in 1621, was hanged for witchcraft on June 19, 1692, at age 61 in Salem MA.
  2. Mary Towne/Estey, born in 1634, was hanged on Sept 22, 1692, during the Salem Witch trials at age 58
  3. Sarah Towne/Cloyes, born in 1642 was accused of witchcraft, in 1692 at age 53, and put into prison, and later released. She pressed charges for her unlawful arrest and the killing of her sisters. She received three gold sovereigns for each of them. The movie, Three Sovereigns For Sister Sarah is about this event.
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Wow this is amazing! :open_mouth:

You clearly have a lengthy connection with the craft!

Thanks for sharing :sparkling_heart:

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That’s cool that you are connected to that! My family has roots in the CT witch trials (Which…the colony of CT according to the laws of England, Witchcraft is still illegal, so we cannot put up a monument to them, since they died when we were a colony)
My ancestor is Lydia Gilbert, who was hung (or we assume, as her death is not stated on how they executed her) as a witch back in 1654. CT got our witch trials done and over with before MA. We are such trend setters.

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Wow @wendy4 What a background and history. May they be blessed, and rest in peace. And may you find comfort in finding out about them. Isn’t Genealogy an awesome study? I have mine back several generations but I wished I had been in it when my great grandparents were alive, I could have answered so many questions.
The Movie, I have to go back and watch that, now that I know someone connected to it…that makes a serious difference. Blessed Be

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Not for many generations, but I was surprised to learn of this.

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Wow, you both a very rich family history @wendy4 and @chelsey1! :star_struck::open_book: I think it’s wonderful that your families hung on to the records and passed down that knowledge to you- how exciting! :sparkling_heart:

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We actually got to be apart of an appeals process to absolve the witches in CT of their crimes…sadly the case never went through. There was a ton of protests, so they dropped it out of safety. I thought it was nuts the amount of people who really thought these poor women were evil witches. Hopefully in the next few years we can file again to get monuments put up for them.

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Sorry to hear it! I hope you can try again in the future with better results and more compassion from the community! :pray::two_hearts:

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