What is a Family Tradition? A Family Tradition is basically a path of Witchcraft that has been kept within a family, or is organized in a family fashion. One becomes part of the Tradition by adoption into the Family.  This is a matter that is not taken lightly.   The following is a short article by Traditional Witch Joyce Siegrist, reproduced  here with her permission.  Although I don't agree with Joyce on various issues, I find it to be a very good explanation of Family...   About the Family by Joyce Siegrist There has been a good bit of talk about the structure of a "family" in Witchcraft. I've said so many times before that Witchcraft was not a religion until this century that I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. So I won't go there for now. Instead, I'd like to tell about how a family is organized. First, the definition. In the European classical cultures a family is defined as all members of a household who live together and intend to live together in perpetuity. It says nothing about blood lineage even tho that was the common denominator in so many families. Quite often you would find what we would refer to today as an "extended" family...... with the grandparents, adult children, grandchildren living together. In addition to that, you could have servants, aunts and uncles, cousins and any number of other relatives. Even the pets are considered members since they are part of the household. The thing that makes "Old" family traditions different from modern day Wicca or new pagan religions, is not so much the fact of religion as it is culture. For my own family the culture is Hungarian Romany. There are several Italian Strega's on this list too. But still one culture does not totally define a family. Let's consider hypothetically that all the families we come into contact with are Witch families. My family is Hungarian Romany (Gypsy). We know about our culture but are learning as much as we can about those things outside our family that are shared by other Roma. But suppose that a daughter of our family marries an Italian Strege (sorry I can't remember the spelling for a male Italian Witch) and moves in with his family. Also suppose that she has children and teaches them the way of the Strega because that is what she had to learn to become part of her husband's family. October comes and it's time to gather for the Fesitvals of that month. We see Roma families and we see Italian families gathering but they are all part of the same "family" for the purpose of Witchcraft. But because they are perpetuating different cultures, we call them "branches" off the main family. I guess it's like planting this one great hybrid tree that can produce apples, pears, plums and all kinds of other fruits too. But the key for any ONE branch of a family is the culture that is accepted as one's own, not the practice of any kind of religion. However, in this modern day and time, to gain a rightful place in society, we've had to incorporated some form of religion into our various branches of the family. I dont' dictate to my family branches whether they have religion as part of their practices or not. If they want it and incorporate it, I don't have a problem. If they don't, I still don't have a problem with it. We're not here to argue the supremacy of one religion over another. We are here to learn what the "real" old families were and how to build a new one if we aren't part of, or can't find, an old one.