Lining Up the Ancestors

As a history nerd I decided to line up some of the more rebellious ancestors in my line. I got a juicy story.

1600s — Putzig District, West Prussia: Cultural hotbed forms in West Prussia (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; now Pomerania, Poland, was part of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire). Various culture identities (most likely scenario hypothesized from my DNA results and the surnames used) co-mingle, begin becoming Lutheran "on paper" in small communes.

1638 — Westerly, Rhode Island: Roger Williams starts the First Baptist Church, which becomes a safe haven for Baptists pushed out by Puritans. Other big contributors over the next decade or so would include the Hubbards (see 1647) and Robert Burdick.

1640s — Exeter, New Hampshire: Rev. Stephen Bachiler gets cancelled (exiled) from his own church for being too progressive. (Nowadays they would have called him "woke".) He is eventually forced back to England and marries a woman who would soon receive a scarlet letter.

1647 — Fairfield, Connecticut: Baptists Samuel and Tacy Hubbard leave Puritan-heavy Connecticut due to "religious upheaval". This is the same year Connecticut tried and hung their first "witch".

1650 — Springfield/Boston, Massachusetts: William Pynchon, founder of Springfield, publishes the first banned and burned book, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, and gets cancelled from the Colonies. Only four copies survived the burning at the Boston Common, and he was considered a "threat" to Puritan order.

1692-3 — Salem, Massachusetts: Salem goes wild! The Witch Trials were more or less Survivor meets cancel culture, but extreme. Later, people would admit they lied. In 1697 Samuel Sewall made his famous apology. No doubt William Pynchon could be heard from beyond the grave, screaming I told you so! But no, you just burned my book and exiled me!

1700 — Boston, Massachusetts: Samuel Sewall basically says, "Slavery is bad!" by publishing The Selling of Joseph. Five years later he challenges a bill that says white men cannot marry Indigenous or Black women. He is only successful in removing Indigenous women from the bill. He also pushes for women's education. Translation: He's gone full woke.

1770's — Colonial America: Revolutionaries are done with King George, war ensues.

1800s — West Prussia: The Putzig commune vibes with folk paganism and probable cultural blending for survival during times of constant border shifts. I found a family history detailing folk culture despite a church presence. My great grandfather, who came to the United States as a boy, would go on to start a tavern legacy. His son would continue it with the Green Bay punk scene's legendary Kutska's Hall. Running the "go to safe space" for the punk community? Definitely folk-commune coded.

1860s — United States: The Civil War occurs. No doubt Samuel Sewall was screaming from the grave, "I told you so!"

2025: I’m sitting here watching patterns repeat, writing a book following the legacy of Pynchon and Sewall, and thinking, "sigh Here we go again."

Why chronology matters: Putting it in order lets you see patterns — not just names and dates, but movements of ideas, migration, resistance, and repetition. Genealogy becomes not only who your people were, but how their choices echoed into yours. It is also interesting to see what different countries were going through at the same time.

The truth: History is messy, people are messy, and timelines are a good place to get honest about that. If the past makes you uncomfortable, good — that’s where the work happens and that means you're studying actual history.