“Every Bell is a witness. None is the witness.” Iconic to the global Nazilic community, the Bell family are the “other family” in the Cloak who have been involved in major capacity for centuries. Their lineage boasts many notable pioneers, explorers, anthropologists, archaeologists, antiquarians, collectors, and philosophers. 

The Bell family also has a long history of acquiring strange and magical artifacts which they claim are directly connected to the Shining One.

Geneaology:

I. Arkin Mandelbrot Bell

c. 1620–1711
Most notably revered for his pioneering of The great Upper White Nile expedition and subsequent discovery of the Moon Slug (OTALA LACTEAL IUVENIS ANIMO).

His importance is enormous because he establishes several traditions simultaneously:

• exploration of anomalous regions
• collection of artifacts
• documentation of oral traditions
• contact with non-European custodians of Nazilic material
• Slug Milk
• the legend of the Baby Mind King
• discovered the Oryx of the Aardvark Girl
• the beginning of the Bell habit of collecting things that should perhaps have been left where they were found

II. Franklin Bell I

c. 1645–1717
Possibly Arkin's son. Possibly nephew. Possibly neither.
Franklin becomes the first great custodian rather than explorer.
Associated with:

• Clock of the Four Winds
• Chains of Thanatos
• Singing Stones
• Foscari manuscripts
• early Bell catalogues
• First to establish the beginning of the Bell Collection as an institution, rather than simply a family hoard.

III. The Three Missing Leaves

c. 1720–1760
The Bell genealogical record becomes fragmentary following the death of Franklin Bell I. Three generations are represented only by signatures, shipping manifests, and annotations to objects already in the collection.
 

IV. Samuel Bell

perhaps c. 1765–1835 (exact dates disputed)
Descendant of Franklin I.
Naturalist.
Collected botanical anomalies. Eventually disappears in Patagonia 1810–1835.
 

V. Margaret Bell

c. 1785–1860
Historian / phenomenologist / Ottoman scholar.
Known for translating Ottoman journals. Likely responsible for preserving many Cosimo documents.
This gives the Bell family an important second intellectual branch:
Margaret → scholarship → preservation → interpretation
 

VI. Nathaniel Bell

c. 1820–1890
Engineer associated with restoration of the Clock of the Four Winds who mysteriously vanishes after attempting to disassemble it.
And then much later:
Franklin II acquires/restores it again during WWII.
Nathaniel's disappearance might be one of the reasons the family eventually stops displaying the Clock publicly.
 

VII. The Long Bell Silence

c. ~1861–1903  (Correspondence incomplete)
A stretch of missing records spanning ~40 years
Something happened here, we don't know what.
Bellwether branch emerges?
 

VIII. Franklin Bell II

c. 1885–1960s
Franklin II becomes the modern antiquarian Franklin, inheriting the name and reputation of Franklin I.
He acquires the Clock of the Four Winds from bombed Stepney during WWII.
He establishes The Four Winds Long Island, an antiques shop with a hidden basement allegedly used for Cloak gatherings which later becomes a bar frequented by notable New York based Motorcycle club Transmaniacon.
His catalogues become some of the most important surviving Bell documents.
Franklin II believed himself the reincarnation, continuation, or chronological successor of Franklin I, obsessed with the fact that his predecessor had collected the same objects.
The first in the family to firmly establish the family's obsession with recursive identity.
 

IX. Arthur Bell

c. 1905–1978
Franklin II's son.
Antiquarian / philosopher / archivist.
He relocates substantial portions of the collection westward, when his chronology becomes increasingly strange.
His surviving notebook:
The collection is beginning to collect us.
This is exactly the point where the Bell family genealogy becomes unreliable.
Arthur may have discovered that some of the Bell catalogues were older than the Bells who supposedly wrote them.
That gives us a reason for the subsequent gaps.
 

X. Eleanor Bell

c. 1942
Arthur's younger daughter.
Archivist.
This is one of the most important people in the entire modern genealogy, despite being nearly invisible.
Eleanor was the keeper of the paper archive, while Edwin became the public custodian.
Edwin preserved the objects.
Eleanor preserved what the objects meant.
The surviving Bell Archive Notes could largely originate with her.
 

XI. Edwin Mandias Bell

c. 1936 – ? 1987
Arthur's son.
First Bell Curio Shop is opened in Boise by Edwin and Eleanor, which moves to St John’s in the late 1970’s.
The curios shop features Museum exhibits of a large portion of the larger Bell collection, marked with mysterious and often ominous warning plaques.
Led a highly successful buyout of post-war occult acquisitions.
Edwin disappeared in 1987 and it is generally presumed he had died under suspicious circumstances, but no body has ever been recovered and the incident has never been officially explained nor investigated.
This begins the great fracture of the modern Bell family.
 

XII. Theodore Arkin Bell

c. 1954
Arthur's grandson.
Believed to be connected to the founding of the storied Morningside Encroachment in Portland.
 

XIII. Eleanor's branch / the concealed generation

There exists a suspicious absence between Eleanor and the younger Bell generations.
It is said that Eleanor maintained a private branch of the family, with descendants who deliberately abandoned the Bell surname. 
The most prominent branch of this split is documented in the Bellwether branch. 
Not because they necessarily wanted to hide, but rather because they were estranged from the main Bell family.
 

XIV. Peregrine "Perry" Bellwether

c. 1942
Leader/custodian of the Ashland encroachment.
Estranged uncle to Virginia Bellwether.
Actual relationship to the Bells is disputed.
Some records say Bellwether is not a Bell name. Others say it is the name the Bells used when they wished not to be found.
 

XV. Virginia Bellwether

b. 1973
Caldwell, Idaho.
Worked at a diner adjacent to the famed X-Ray Cafe on Burnside in 1990’s Portland. Inherits the Ashland encroachment. Founded a document distribution service running the length of I-5 through Washington, Oregon and California known as “The Apollo Group.”
Her relationship to Perry Bellwether is somewhat uncertain.
 

XVI. Virgil Bell

b. 1973
Son of Theodore Arkin Bell.
Theatrical work and passionate thespian. Noted comic-book aficionado whose collection is said to have contained well over 150,000 items at its peak.
Outreach director of the Morningside Encroachment through the 1990’s.
Born in the same year as Virginia Bellwether, they become two branches of the same generation who enter the Nazilic world through completely different doors.
Virgil through theatre, mythology, and Morningside.
Virginia through her job at the diner, the X-Ray Cafe, and her relationship with Virgil who introduces her to the Cloak through the Morningside.
 

XVII. Malcolm Bell

c. 1968
The mysterious bridge between the old Bell archive and the later Bell Station mythology.
Current presumed custodian of the Bell archives. Possibly operating Bell Station under another identity. Possibly nonexistent.
Malcolm contends the Bell family genealogy is wrong.