> Also, not long after the trials there was a > large-scale exodus from the Salem environs by people who decided they had > simply had enough of having their lives dictated by the Puritan authorities. > My ancestors were among them. Mine were too. Susannah Martin married my ancestor George Martin and raised his daughter Hannah Martin ("the witch's daughter") from a toddler after his first wife died so my ancestors were most certainly affected. In addition, the Gould family were cousins to my ancestors. (John Gould was accused as a traitor by his bro-in-law John Wildes and hung; later Wildes' second wife Sarah was hung along w/ Susannah Martin probably as revenge). There is also a persistent family legend as yet unproven that another ancestor John Hoag lost his position as an assize court judge because of his oppositon to the trials. I haven't completed my research by any means but so far it appears that descendants of these ancestors who were close to the action converted to the Society of Friends and emigrated together from Amesbury/Salisbury/Newbury continuing to intermarry with other Salem area descendants ( much later in the migration including apparently the Raymonds who unfortunately sang like canaries at the trials) until my ggrandfather's generation finally ending in Whittier CA (Greenleaf Whittier whom the town was named after is a cousin also descended from "the witch's daughter" Hannah Martin and Ezekial Worthen). Discovering how close my families were to the witch persecutions really has helped me understand my immediate family at the end of this migration even tho the witch trial involvement was buried in the closet long ago. Leslie