🪦 Weekly Witchy CHALLENGE - Ancestor Work

[Susurrus]

Okay, so I was inspired by @mary25 entry & decided to go a different route with my entry. I know it’s long, but I got excited. So believe it or not, I only included the most interesting relationships I have to everything under the “witchcraft” umbrella.

Challenge Entry

I have my family tree up on Geni - World Family Tree & there are “projects” that you can look into & people related to them. So I started searching through them & when I got to the pages with the list of names - I went through & checked ones that have been known throughout history & some that were just interesting names honestly. Some of these relationships to me are:

• blood relatives
• in-law relationships
• a mouthful to say & actually figure out even though they are in writing…

The witchcraft case of Grace Sherwood is one of the best-known in Virginia. She was accused of bewitching a neighbor’s crop in 1698. Allegations grew over time until the Princess Anne County government and her accusers decided she would be tested by ducking since the water was considered pure and would not permit a witch to sink into its depths. On July 10th, 1706 at ten of the clock, Sherwood’s accusers tied her thumbs to big toes cross-bound and dropped her into the western branch of the Lynnhaven River near what is now known as Witchduck Point. Sherwood floated, a sign of guilt. She was imprisoned but was eventually released. Sherwood lived the rest of her life quietly and died in 1740. Was she really a witch or was Grace a woman before her time? She was a healer, a midwife, and a friend to the children and animals. Grace Sherwood history courtesy of Belinda Nash

In the Trial of 1706 at Witchduck Point, 10 AM July 10th, 1706, Grace Sherwood, the daughter of a carpenter and the wife of a planter in the county of Princess Anne, was accused by neighbors of witchcraft. Grace was tried in the second Princess Anne County Courthouse, found guilty, and consented to the traditional trial by water. She was incarcerated in the local jail. After her release, Grace paid the back taxes on her property in 1714, returned to her farm, and worked the land until her death at age 80 in the autumn of 1740. Grace Sherwood, Virginia’s only convicted witch tried by water, lays claim to Witchduck Road. Her legend lives on as “The Infamous Witch of Pungo”.

Virginia Governor Pardons Grace Sherwood

“I am pleased to join the Mayor of Virginia Beach in extending best wishes as you work to promote justice in the 1706 “Witch Ducking” case of Grace Sherwood. With 300 years of hindsight, we can all agree that trial by water is an injustice. We also can celebrate the fact that woman’s equality is constitutionally protected today, and women have the freedom to pursue their hopes & dreams. The historical records that survive indicate that Ms. Sherwood, a midwife and widowed mother of three, survived her “trial by water” in 1706. Those records also indicate that one of my predecessors, Governor Alexander Spotswood, eventually helped her reclaim her property. The record also indicates Ms. Sherwood led an otherwise quiet and law-abiding life until she died at the age of 80. Today, July 10, 2006, as 70th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood. Sincerely, Timothy M. Kaine, Governor, Commonwealth of Virginia”

Grace Sherwood is known today, 300 years belated, as the only deceased person in Virginia to be exonerated.

• Grace Sherwood (ca. 1660–1740) - Encyclopedia Virginia

Grace White is my third cousin 7 times removed; wife’s first cousin’s husband’s great-grandmother.

“This County of Lancashire … now may lawfully be said to abound as much in Witches of divers kinds as Seminaries, Jesuites, and Papists” (from Thomas Potts (1613) The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the County of Lancaster’)

The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area around Pendle Hill in Lancashire and were charged with the murders of ten people by witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.

Six of the Pendle witches came from one of two families, each at the time headed by a woman in her eighties: Elizabeth Southerns (aka Demdike), her daughter Elizabeth Device, and her grandchildren James and Alizon Device; Anne Whittle (aka Chattox), and her daughter Anne Redferne. The others accused were Jane Bulcock and her son John Bulcock, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Alice Gray, and Jennet Preston. The outbreaks of witchcraft in and around Pendle may demonstrate the extent to which people could make a living by posing as witches. Many of the allegations resulted from accusations that members of the Demdike and Chattox families made against each other, perhaps because they were in competition, both trying to make a living from healing, begging, and extortion.

Wikipedia Pendle Witches

I searched for some other related projects, one of them being Metaphysics & within that search was Transcendentalism; one of the core beliefs is an ideal spirituality that transcends the physical & empirical & is only realized through the individual’s intuition. I also looked through some other projects for Metaphysics, Astrology, Witchcraft, the Occult, & a couple of others.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson - Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. From Ralph Waldo Emerson - Wikipedia

• Henry David Thoreau

Quote from Henry David

“With every child begins the world again.”

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A descendant of Mayflower passenger, Richard Warren.

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on his grandmother’s farm on July 12, 1817 (“Thoreau” 96). Thoreau, who was of French-Huguenot and Scottish-Quaker ancestry, was baptized as David Henry Thoreau, but at the age of twenty, he legally changed his name to Henry David.

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

From: Henry David Thoreau - Wikipedia

Henry David Thoreau is my 6th cousin 6 times removed.

Other interesting relationships that I have are to:

• Sara Northup Hollister – a major figure in the Pasadena branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a society founded by the English occultist Aleister Crowley. She had a turbulent relationship with John Whiteside the head of the Pasadena OTO & who also married her sister Helen. Sara was a committed member known as “Soror (Sister) Cassap” but had acquired a reputation for disruptiveness & Crowley denounced her as a “vampire.” – Sara is my 10th great aunt’s fifth great niece’s ex-husband’s ex-wife

• Aleister Crowley is my third great uncle’s first cousin four times removed wife’s third great niece’s husband’s great uncle’s wife’s great-grandson

• Carl Jung – one of the most well-known pioneers in the field of dream analysis, a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker, & the founder of analytical psychology. – Carl Jung is my 12th cousin five times removed

• Nostradamus (Michel Nostradamus) was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. Known as a master astrologer, was famous for his healing powers, & also a “seer”. Nostradamus is my 16th great grandfather’s wife’s sister’s husband’s wife’s fourth great nephew’s wife’s father

• W. B. Yeats – was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He studied poetry in his youth and was fascinated by Irish legends and the occult from an early age. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. is my 14th cousin 8 times removed & a Nobel Prize in Literature recipient.

This challenge led me to find out some interesting information about my genealogy & ties to witchcraft, the occult, metaphysics, astrology & other different aspects of the craft that have been explored throughout history.