Halliwell family
From Charmed
The Halliwell family are descendants of the Warren line of witches that started with Melinda Warren, daughter of Charlotte Warren in the 17th century. They are the most powerful line of witches in history. One of the things that have made the Charmed Ones and all witches in the line so strong is their bond as a family. Each Warren witch would possess at least one of the three original powers: Telekinesis, Molecular Immobilization, and Premonition.
Some of the (full) named ancestors of the Charmed Ones include Beatrice Warren, Prudence Warren and Brianna Warren Wentworth. Some other family members include: "Astrid", "Helena", "Laura", "Grace", "P. Bowen", "P. Baxter", "P. Russell". On top of these, Piper once noted some of their family: "An aunt who's manic, a cousin who's a drunk, and a father that's invisible." ("Something Wicca This Way Comes")
As stated above, the witches in the Warren line are especially powerful because of their bond as family. This is particularly noteworthy in the Charmed Ones - three sister witches, whose powers are directly linked to their bond as sisters. Many demons have discovered that the key to defeating them isn't by breaking their bonds as witches, but as sisters. ("Power Outage")
The bond of family is important to all Halliwells, such as Penny Halliwell, the Charmed Ones' grandmother. She had fallen in love with the Necromancer, who offered her the opportunity to be brought back to life so they can live together at the cost of alienating her family and sacrificing generations of magical spirits. Though she appeared tempted, under a truth spell she told him: "But the truth is, that our love isn't nearly as powerful as the love I have for my family." She then proceeded to read the vanquishing spell that killed him. ("Necromancing the Stone") Years later, she was convinced her three granddaughters--whom she believed were the Charmed Ones--would never end their constant bickering. She brewed a potion to permanently strip away their powers, but died before she could give it to them. ("Pre-Witched")
Phoebe Halliwell once found a way to literally draw power from the witches of the Halliwell line. After spending a long time trying to come up with a spell to vanquish the Source, she finally found a way to draw upon the power of their whole family, by invoking the names of powerful witches before them. This was enough to eventually vanquish the Source, it killed the Source that was inhabiting Cole Turner, though was not powerful enough to vanquish Barbas once he had Cole's powers. ("Charmed and Dangerous," "Sympathy for the Demon")
[edit] "P" Tradition
Starting sometime around the 1890s, members of the Halliwell line started a tradition of choosing names for their daughters that started with the letter "P" There were members of the line, such as Prudence Warren who had already had a P. name, but the uninterrupted pattern started about then. The first of which were three cousins, P. Bowen, P. Baxter and P. Russell. P. Baxter then named her daughter Penelope. Later in the 1950s, Penelope named her lone daughter Patricia. In the 1970s, Patricia named her three daughters with Victor Bennett Prudence, Piper and Phoebe. When Patricia and Sam Wilder had a daughter, they had to give it up to a church and keep her a secret. Their only request of the nun they entrusted with the baby was that her name start with a "P", and they wrapped her up in an embroidered blanket that Prue, Piper and Phoebe also had. The nun decided to name her Paige. ("Pardon My Past," "Charmed Again")
When Piper found out she was pregnant, she eventually decided to name the daughter she expected "Prudence Melinda." But when her offspring turned out to be a boy, they couldn't decide on a name they liked. Among named considered were "Potter", "Peter", and "Patrick". Piper and Leo would later decide on "Wyatt Matthew Halliwell", breaking tradition. ("Baby's First Demon").
Piper's second baby was easy to name, because he had come to the future and already revealed it as Christopher Perry Halliwell. His first name was, in fact, Leo's father's name, although it didn't start with a "P" as Paige once noted. Before Chris revealed he was Piper and Leo's son, he told the Charmed Ones his name was Chris Perry. ("It's A Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World," "Oh My Goddess! Part 2")
Piper and Leo would eventually have a daughter named Melinda Halliwell.
[edit] The Manor
The Halliwell Manor, a Victorian house rebuilt in 1906 by members of the Warren line, has been home to their magical line ever since, and is expected to continue to serve as such well into the future. It contains many relics owned by family members, such as P. Bowen's camera, Pearl's couch, Penny's sewing machine, and Patricia's crystal even as old as Melinda Warren's blessing cup.
The Charmed Ones, after their Grandmother ('Grams') Penelope Halliwell kept many paintings and photographs of their family members around the manor. Between the mid-20th and early-21st century, the staircase was decorated with antique pictures of Halliwell ancestors. But by the 2050s, Piper had redecorated it with photographs of the Charmed Ones, their parents, Grams, and their descendants. ("That '70s Episode," "Forever Charmed")
 Unnamed Warren descendant |
 Unnamed "Halliwell matriarchs" |
 Unnamed Warren descendants |
 Early 20th century Married Couple (Possibly P. Baxter and Gordon Johnson) |
 Unnamed Warren descendant |
[edit] Halliwell Family Tree
The Warren Line originally began with Charlotte Warren, Melinda's mother. Charlotte was a member of a coven of witches in Colonial Viginia. Towards the end of her pregnancy with her daughter, she was kidnapped by an evil practitioner named Ruth who sought to use the baby's powers for darkness instead of for good. On October 31, 1670, the day of Melinda Warren's birth, Charlotte was rescued by the Charmed Ones, who were sent back in time in order to preserve the destiny of good magic, and delivered Melinda in a protective circle with the help of Piper Halliwell.
Melinda Warren grew up to be the original source of the Warren line's powers and created the Book of Shadows. As a witch, she practiced the powers of telekinesis, molecular immobilization, and premonition. She had a daughter named Prudence and was the lover of Matthew Tate. After he had copied her powers, Matthew exposed Melinda as a witch, dooming her. She avenged herself by condemning him to be imprisoned for all eternity in the very locket that he had given her. Though she could have used her powers to escape the pyre, Melinda allowed herself to burn so that her daughter would be safe from persecution and could go on to continue the Warren line. While at the stake, she prophesied that each of her descendants would grow stronger and stronger, culminating in three sisters who would be the most powerful good witches ever to walk the earth--the Charmed Ones.
Prudence Warren was Melinda's only child, and was revealed to have the powers of telekinesis and premonition. ("Whispers From The Past" - Charmed book series.) She continued writing in the well-hidden Book of Shadows, and had a daughter named Cassandra Warren, who became the last known Warren witch - until the arrival of Phoebe Halliwell - to possess the power of premonitions. Cassandra later married and adopted her husband's last name - Wentworth.
Cassandra is described in the Charmed novels as the mother of Beatrice Warren, Brianna Warren, and Grace Warren. This appears to conflict with Melinda's prophecy before her death, of the Warren line growing in power to produce three sisters (the Charmed Ones).
However, it appears that Grace had no powers, unlike Beatrice and Brianna, who are noted as possessing molecular immobilization and telekinesis, respectively. Grace's lack of powers also conflicts with a statement made in the first season by Prue to Andy Trudeau about inheriting powers as witches ("If they're girls... yes." The Truth is Out There... And it Hurts) and the spell used to defeat the Source, in which the name Grace is in invoked as a matriarch of the Halliwell line. She would not be included in the spell unless she was a powerful witch. This mistake can be that of the author of "Whispers From The Past".
Grace did have one daughter named Helen, who grew up to mother Astrid Warren, the mother of Laura Bowen, Gregory Bowen, and Christina Bowen. (Again, this contradicts statements throughout the series that the Warren line is purely female and that Wyatt Halliwell was the first male born into it.) Also like Grace, Gregory did not have any powers, but he married a woman named Lola and fathered the good witch P. Bowen. His sisters Laura and Christina also married, taking the last names Baxter and Russell, and producing P. Baxter and P. Russell, respectively.
Perhaps Grace is a cousin or niece of Cassandra who was adopted after the death of her mother/parents. Gregory might also be adopted explaining how a male was born into the Warren line of witches, as we all know didn't happen until the birth of Wyatt Halliwell.
Thus, the next generation of Warren witches were cousins P. Bowen, who had the power of cryokinesis, P. Baxter, who had the power of molecular immobilization, and P. Russell, who had the power of pyrokinesis. The three cousins turned the Halliwell Manor into a speakeasy during Prohibition in the 1920s.
P. Bowen worked as a photographer for the speakeasy while Baxter was the primary runner and caretaker, and Russell acted as a fortune teller and witch-for-hire for those who came to the Manor. (Which reflected on their future lives in their reincarnation as the original Power of Three; Prue took a job at 415 Magazine before she died to fufill her passion for photography, Piper owns the popular club P3, which figures prominently throughout Charmed's run, and Phoebe once operates as a hotel lounge psychic to buy Prue a birthday present.)
Unfortunately, tragedy was to befall the cousins. P. Russell fell in love with a warlock named Anton and turns evil through his influence. They plotted to kill Bowen and Baxter so that Anton would obtain their powers. To do this, Anton gave Russell a potion that tripled her powers and gave her the ability to throw fire. (It can be here noted that throwing fire is described as an upper-level demon's power. When Phoebe Halliwell, Russell's reincarnation, becomes Queen of the Underworld, she gains the power to throw fire.) Anton then shape-shifted into P. Baxter's former lover, who was a past life of Leo Wyatt.
During their attack on the Manor, Russell's cousins strangle her. Baxter and Bowen feared that Anton would be too much for their descendants to handle should he ever reunite with any future life of Russell. With this in mind, they also cursed Russell's soul so she and all her future lives would die on the same day and age. In modern times, Phoebe switches souls with Russell, and during this time, Russell accidentally vanquishes Anton when Prue deflects Russell's fire towards the warlock. The curse created by Bowen and Baxter was broken by Prue and Piper, when Phoebe and Russell returned to their bodies and Phoebe's sisters placed Russell's amulet around her neck to absorb the magic and stop its effect.
It is shown that P. Bowen was Prue's past-life, P. Baxter was Piper's past-life, and P. Russell was Phoebe's. They became sisters in their current lives, with Russell's pyrokinesis taken from Phoebe as a punishment for her misuse of it as Russell, and Prue presumably to gain her cyrokinetic powers, had she lived. P. Baxter's husband, Gordon Johnson, was Dan Gordon's past-life and Penny Halliwell's father, and thus the Charmed Ones's great-grandfather. P. Baxter's unnamed former lover was a past life of Leo Wyatt, Piper's current husband. As another mistake of the writers, Leo Wyatt, who was born in 1924, would have had to die at least three years before the events of this episode. However, Baxter seems unsurprised at his appearance, as she would have been had he died.
Penelope Johnson was the daughter of P. Baxter and Gordon Johnson, wife of Allen Halliwell, and mother of Patty Halliwell. She was born in a hotel room in Boston. Penny was gifted with telekinesis and had gained such precision with it that, when she believed her granddaughters were being taken by warlocks (who were actually the Charmed Ones from the future), she was able to open the front door while simultaneously sending the the trio flying out of the door from the solarium. She was married four times, engaged six, and divorced three times. Penny was also the lover of the Necromancer demon and was the one who ultimately vanquished him. Penny bound her granddaughters' powers until her death in 1998. Afterwards, she continues to help her granddaughters from beyond, whether as turning pages in the Book of Shadows or physically appearing as a ghost to assist them.
Patricia (Patty) Halliwell was the mother of Prue, Piper, Phoebe Halliwell and Paige Matthews, ex-wife of Victor Bennett, and former lover of Samuel Wilder (her Whitelighter). She was born in 1950. Patty had the power of molecular immobilization. In 1975, Patty made a pact with the warlock Nicholas to bless his ring, granting him immunity to the Charmed Ones's powers. Soon after, she meets the future selves of three of her daughters and helps them to undo the pact that was made so that they would be able to vanquish Nicholas in their own time. (It appears that she and Penny created the Nicholas Must Die spell after sending them back to the future.) After getting divorced from Victor and getting into a relationship with Sam Wilder, Patty became pregnant with her fourth daughter, Paige, and gave her up to a church soon after she was born, fearing reprecussions of the Elders if they discovered she'd had a child with her Whitelighter. Soon after, Patty was drowned by a water demon. She occasionally assists her daughters from beyond.
Prudence (Prue) Halliwell, Piper Halliwell, and Phoebe Halliwell were raised in the Halliwell manor by their Grandmother Penny Halliwell (Grams) who died, leaving the house to the sisters. After the death of thier eldest sister, Prue, the sisters were revealed to have another sister, Paige Matthews. She was taken in by Piper and Phoebe to not only be loved but trained as a witch. As time went by Piper, now the eldest sister first had two sons (Wyatt and Chris Halliwell) with her husband, who was at the time an Elder, Leo Wyatt. After his wings were clipped and he became mortal they had another child, Melinda Halliwell. Phoebe, the living middle sister, found love in a cupid-angel named Coop, whom she soon married. The couple then after had three daughters. Paige, the youngest sister, also married; but unlike her sisters, married a mortal named Henry Mitchell. The two had a son, Henry Mitchell Jr. and a pair of twins.
In the distant future there are numerous children who play in the Halliwell manor in the presence of their "Grandmama", Piper Halliwell. The various grandchildren all are the children of the children of the Charmed ones, but all remain to be unnamed except for the eldest grandson Matthew Halliwell, who is hypothesised to be the son of Chris Halliwell and his wife, Bianca. Matthew is thought to be the oldest grandson, at 14 years old, and the youngest is thought to be near 4 years old. One grandaughter-Prudence is distinctly seen talking to an elderly Piper and being handed down the Book of Shadows by Piper. As her ample amount of siblings and/or second cousins enter the house Prudence telekinetically closes the door.
