Tell-All Thursday

Yesterday's photo might be a little hard to read. It says: Susannah Martin*, Hanged, July 10, 1692.

My dad has done a lot of genealogical research into both sides of our family--his and my mom's side. It used to be a hobby of his, and I see myself getting involved in the research once I have more time in my life (retirement years, perhaps??). History fascinates me, and I actually love doing interesting research. Plus, with so much information on the internet now, tracking down this type of information is much easier than when my dad started researching. I remember him exchanging letters with people all over the country when I was a kid, and he and one of his sisters would always talk about making side trips to courthouses to look through old records on vacation.

Learning stories about my own history makes the idea of genealogical research even more tempting. My dad has tells stories about my great-great-grandmother Agnes Daly*, who came from County Cork Ireland to American with her teenage brother. She was only in her early 20s, but she left the rest of the family behind. . .and brought that part of our family tree to America.

When we studied the Salem Witch Trials in school, my dad had another story of family history to share. He'd determined that our family is related to Susannah Martin, who was part of the group found guilty of witchcraft at one of the earliest trials. She, along with 4 other people, were hung on July 10, 1692, and their bodies were dumped into a mass grave. The photo in the post below is a marker at the site where she and others were hung in Salem.

I'm not exactly sure how we are related to her--I did some quick googling for her family trees and found both my mother's maiden name and my dad's last name (which is a very common name) in different places, so I am not sure which branch of her family ours came from. (I am certain, however, that my mother's side of the family and my dad's side of the family are NOT both related to Susannah Martin!) I did find out that one of Susannah's daughters (Jane) is a distant relation to President Chester A. Arthur*. I should be expecting my invitation to overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom any day now, right?

Anyway, we didn't make it to Salem on our most recent Boston trip, though we did see plenty of burial grounds and other spooky sites on our Ghosts and Gravestones tour. We took that tour our first night in Boston, and it was a neat way to see a lot of the city--even though places look pretty different the the light of day. The tour was fun (I'd taken the tour on my last trip to Boston with girlfriends in 2000), and informative. Our guide was (possibly unintentially) funny, but that helped make it a good experience for us. K is usually pretty grumbly when it comes to things like ghost tours, but he was a good sport and enjoyed it even though I think he initially agreed to the tour just to humor me. He's a keeper, that guy.

*Note: None of the names in this post are even close to my current last name, my maiden name, or even my mom's maiden name, so I felt comfortable posting them while still maintaining a necessary degree of anonimity.