I spent the afternoon in the university library reviewing my sources. I still have to get to the downtown library on Thursday. Also, the law library, which has several of the best sources, not only of the trial documents, is temporarily closed because someone installing new carpeting on the third floor used a noxious smelling solvent, so they sheathed all the shelves and furniture in plastic (?). The best sources of discussion on the politics of the witchcraft trials are also with one exception the best sources on genealogy. Robinson Enders wrote two books about a year apart with similar titles. His book, Salem Witchcraft and Hawthorn's House of the SEven Gables (1992) is basically about the genealogy of the town, and full of genealogical tables showing how accusers and victims were related to each other. His book, The Devil Discovered: Salem witchcraft 1692, is as someone already posted, one of the two best sources on the politics of the situation, and he discusses in even greater detail how people were related than do Boyer and Nissenbaum in the other classic about the politics behind the situation, Salem Possessed. The Devil Discovered is also extremely clearly written. Boyer and Nissenbaum do macro demographic and geographic breakdowns on the situation and therefore support their argument in ways noone else did before. Two other books I found that examine the politics of the situation in some detail are Gragg, A Quest for Security: The life of Samuel Parris (1990), see esp chapt 3, and Hill, A Delusion of Satan (1995), see esp chapters 7 and 8. I suspect that also Gragg's The Salem Witch Crisis (1992) is along the same vein, but it is missing from the library. I looked everywhere and put a trace on it. There is also some genealogical information in Bernard (Bernie) Rosenthal's Salem Story (1993). (Bernie: I finally put it together what it is that you wrote - only the book with the excellent chapter, "June 10, 1692"!) DAvid Greene's articles in the American Genealogist, apparently three of them plus a correction, also seem to be chalk full of thoroughly researched genealogical information (I won't have the other three until Thursday). Incidentally, John Trask was apparently an inlaw of some sort to the Putnams, but I'm unable to discover from the Trask web page how William Trask the Putnam in-law was related to John Trask. Yours, Dora Smith _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com