Modern Ancestor Worship Musings

By Star Foster

I’ve been slowly tracing back my family’s history and thinking of the stories my parents and grandparents told me. Usually talk of ancestors was accompanied by a book, either a small notebook crammed with notes or family Bibles being opened. My mother’s father had no birth certificate and the family Bible was the only proof of his birth date he had. I remember as a kid being mesmerized by the names: James, William, Avis, Alma, Lydia, Susan, Sion, Abel, Nancy, Edna, Charles, Lloyd, Obediah, Effie, Curren, Honorah, Jakob and Sophia.

Probably influenced by my upbringing, my first inclination towards ancestor worship is to record their names. Unless you were wealthy or famous, and often even then, you were the only one who kept track of your ancestry. It was not the job of the government or churches/temples to record births, marriages and deaths. After writing and copying copiusly by hand as a student of traditional Witchcraft, it really only makes sense to combine the handwritten notes and Bible records of my ancestors with the concept of a Book of Shadows. Perhaps a very large scrapbook where I can record by hand the names, dates and stories where I have them.

Read the original article at: Pantheon