ISSUE № 3: ROOTS
ROOTS
Illustration by Kelsey Martin of Kettle Pot Paper
I.
After mining Beaufort County's deed books, wills, and public records, plus countless various and sundry history books, Dee Lewis stated that he and colleague Juanita Paull "realized that [Blackbeard] lived in Bath. There's no question that he lived there, that his father owned property there."
Outside the four walls of the History Museum of Carteret County this would broadly be considered a bold, even controversial, claim. In the museum's reference library, back behind exhibits ranging from Confederate spy Emeline Pigott's carriage to World War II memorabilia, the statement is as unremarkable as asking which day the cafe next door serves tuna salad or the roar of the air conditioner. After generations of legends with no paper trail, there are two main strains of thought about Blackbeard's origins. This theory, which places the man known to history as Edward Teach in Bath Town before his foray into piracy, is not broadly accepted by historians in North Carolina or beyond. That does not seem to bother the team one bit.
An aside: Juanita, on their off-hours reading at the museum: "I have fallen in love with more men in this library, I'll be honest." Dee: "She tolerates me, but…" Juanita: "Well, I love his ancestors, too. I love his grandaddy the best, his grandaddy has some really good stories."
As volunteers at the history museum's archive, Lewis and Paull spend their workday hours available to whomever might walk or call in, looking for a piece of history or to fill in their genealogy. He works in the more traditional space of paper and books, while she specializes in pursuing links in the chain through DNA. They have worked together for years, and it shows in their Bonnie-and-Clyde dynamic. When they are not dusting off other people's history, they generally dig into their own. During her off hours, Paull (a woman with cropped, curly grey hair and a spunky streak a mile wide) is currently looking into Decatur Gillikin, an ancestor with a Paul Bunyan-ish reputation who kept a pet named Saw Blade that was rumored to be half wild hog, half gator. Although they are committed to be in the archives for set hours, it is not unusual for Lewis and Paull to stay until 10 or 11 at night, following a lead or absorbed in a book. By working persistently, they often find unexpected answers to old, long-settled questions. Paull explained,
"There's a saying that goes: Family bibles can lie. DNA does not." She added that someone's granny may not have intentionally put falsehood in the family bible — but a family bible taken at face value has the potential to lead a genealogist astray.
Left to right: Bob (last name lost, sorry Bob!), Juanita Paull, and Dee Lewis.
"We warn everybody that's getting into genealogy," Lewis said, "If you have a thin skin, if you're easily offended, if your feelings are hurt easily, this may not be for you. Because your ancestors were real people. Good, bad, and ugly. And if you dig hard enough, you'll find all of it."
The work Lewis and Paull undertake is important, but it is not urgent; it is done methodically, sifting through a thousand pieces of less relevant information for one piece of the puzzle that fits. People float in and out of the library — one volunteer working on identifying people in a cache of studio portraits, another bringing in an old painting to triangulate information about the location of a photo someone else dropped off. All of the volunteers have an area of expertise, and this creates what they call the Think Tank; when one person is stuck, they can present their problem to the group. (They also discuss questions like, "If you could live one day in history, what day would it be?", which eventually circles back to matters of more immediate interest).
Lewis said,
"We're constantly finding new sources of information. It's easy here — you just pick up a book you've never opened before. There's ten thousand books here, you just grab one off the shelf," — the bookshelves tend to slope in the middle from the weight of the books, which range from antiques with yellowed pages to new reference books to binders — "and start reading. You'll find something you don't know." Lewis also noted, "To get good at this stuff, you've got to know about royal families, you've got to know about transportation, you've got to know about ships, you've got to know about oceanography, you've got to know about local geography, the dynamics of the opening and closing of inlets. You've got to get real familiar with their world."
Whatever the current project, whoever the subject, Lewis and Paull look at the big picture for individual facets that feed into understanding of an individual situation or person. Who were their neighbors? What property did they own? Who did they marry? How were they educated?
An aside: Juanita Paull says they have favorite names to say out loud, just because they are fun. "Like Marmaduke Goodhand," she says with great relish. Mar-ma-duke Good-hand.
"You get to know these people … a whole lot of them we give nicknames," Lewis says from behind his desk, which is scattered with books and papers and overlooked by a magnifying glass on an arm. Experience means that Lewis and Paull can swiftly make automatic conversions. For instance, they will know that spelling was wildly inconsistent, so the name Teach could also appear as Theach, Thatch, Tach, Thache, or Theache. They know in the back of their minds that families often used naming schemes, passing family names down the line from grandparent to grandchild, from uncle to nephew. After reading through enough old materials, your mind gets used to skimming right over capitalized nouns, yt used for that, and the funny f-swoop used for an "s" in older books.
An example of old text — letter reading is its own art form.
Familiarity with their subjects means that the moment you say an old eastern Carolina name, their minds start to map out a web of possible connections. They tend to know what a name means — but if they don't, they have a pretty good idea where to begin looking.
In addition to the 10,000 books in the library, a regular stream of donors drop off new artifacts and letters (for instance, a scrap of the Hindenburg from the family of a Coast Guardsman who happened to be in Lakehurst working security for the doomed flight). The volunteers can also draw from online resources, which are adding more information by the day.
With so much data to draw from, where do they start? Lewis and Paull agree that a sixth sense develops inside experienced genealogists, and it tends to pull them in the right direction. Some would call it instinct or the subconscious or listening to your gut — Paull said that she thinks it's a little spiritual. Lewis chimed in that dozens of times, he has been reading a book or researching a particular topic, and someone walks in asking about that very same subject. After enough serendipitous experiences, even he began thinking there was something to it.
Visit the History Museum of Carteret County in Morehead City, take in the exhibits, and pull a book off the shelf in the library — or better yet, ask one of the volunteers for one of their favorites, and start turning pages. Current hours: Tuesday — Friday, 12:00 - 4:00.
"And I'm an accountant!" he added.
Whatever the pull is, a researcher eventually learns to listen to those internal pings and follow where they lead — to turn one more page, to request the next folder in a series, to check a certain name. It also will warn you when something is a bit askew.
Ancestry.com, Paull said with some indignance, has ruined their sources by letting individuals provide themselves as a source of information without cold, hard evidence. Some of the information is solid, but other pieces are at risk of the family bible compromise. In her eyes, you need three documents to make a definite statement, or else all you have is a hypothesis.
"DNA can now be one of those sources, but it's very convoluted. It takes time," she said.
II.
"Dee is very good at instigating trouble," Paull said, explaining how they started down the Blackbeard rabbit hole.
"Thank you very much," Lewis retorts, clearly pleased.
Sitting in the Think Tank and batting around ideas, they realized that all the information they had about Blackbeard was based around popular stories and contradictory claims.
Both had grown up going to Beaufort's Pirate Festival in the heyday of Grayden Paul, a local historian and yarn-spinner who was known to preface his stories, "All these tales are true, except for the ones that aren't." The point of the festival was not historical accuracy, but — understandably — festivities, days filled with pageants, parades, and feasts presumably composed of hot dogs and ice cream. (Lewis says the origins of the event actually had something to do with not wanting to be outdone by the centennial celebration of rival neighbor, Morehead City).
Other than Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge sinking out in the inlet, the facts behind Beaufort's most treasured and re-told stories about Blackbeard are questionable at best, complemented by contradictory stories about his origins (Johnson's General History repeated from the second edition on that he was born in Bristol, but the lore in North Carolina has always been that he was from Bath). The contradictions, tall tales, and closely-held traditions left the duo with a Swiss-cheese portrait of who the pirate was. Lewis and Paull decided to take a fresh look by tracing Blackbeard from scratch, like they would for their own family, and following where their research led.
The stack from the library’s Blackbeard envelope (which is appropriately decorated with skulls, etc.)
III.
Despite many claims to the contrary, there are no definite descendants of Blackbeard in North Carolina, no genetic trail to follow. Instead, Lewis and Paull decided to start with John Martin, a known associate of Blackbeard who was tried with the pirate crew in Williamsburg and was presumably pardoned or exonerated. He was also one of Lewis's gruncles (a shorthand term they've developed for a many-times-great uncle or close relative. See also: grauntie). Deciding to work independently of each other and to come back together once they'd each reached a conclusion, Lewis and Paull used John Martin's will as an entrypoint and meandered on from there. They worked in bits and pieces, on afternoons when the library was empty, and whenever else time allowed. They methodically sifted through landowners on Bath Creek: the Knights, Aldersons, Worsleys, Lewises, Reeds, Kenyons, Salters, Nelsons, Fulfords, and others, their plots of land often separated by creeks that were slender and gnarled, like the roots of a live oak. Just for fun, Paull decided to trace Lewis's DNA back to see which landowners he was related to.
"It was all of 'em," Lewis said, later producing a photocopied map of Bath Creek marked with a list of his ancestors/Bath residents written out in blocky text, the number of genealogical connections circled (Knight: 15. Martin: 60. Cary: 6. Jones: 105, etc.). Perhaps in a moment of boredom or brainstorming, someone colored in Bath Creek with a blue highlighter.
An aside: Dee can trace his line back to the Vikings, but he says that's not an exclusive club due to their wild oats sowing. He says even Prince Charles is in the category with him, something he's resigned to. "You've got to take the gristle with the gravy."
Dee Lewis at his post.
Paull said that part of this project was following the money. If wealth suddenly came into a family, what was the source? An intriguing trend emerged in the wills from the area; an unusually large number of people passed down cutlasses and Spanish currency to surviving relatives.
"One guy left four cutlasses to his four sons," Lewis said, wondering at the number. "One cutlass, maybe. You just ask yourself the logical question: Why did this guy need four cutlasses? What business might he have been in? It don't take Nostradamus most of the time to figure [it] out."
Their research paints a more complete portrait of a complicit community — some inhabitants engaged directly in piracy, others willing to act as fences (knowingly selling stolen goods at a cheap price) to buyers who were happy to have access to those goods, all while officials actively turned a blind eye. The end results of Lewis and Paull's work is written out on a genealogical form chart, which is stamped "This Genealogy Subject to Correction and amendment" and marked in scrawling red ink: THEORY NOT FACT. It all boils down to one surname: Beard.
IV.
Lewis and Paull's work is complimented by that of genealogists Jane Stubbs Bailey, Allen Norris, and John H. Oden, who published their findings in the North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal (which Lewis and Paull did not read before embarking on their own project). We're going to look at a basic outline of the Beard theory as framed by Bailey et al., and pepper in additional findings from other researchers/historians.
In 1711, merchant-mariner Captain James Beard was taken deathly ill in South Carolina. Despite his weakness he dictated a hasty will, leaving his earthly possessions to his (unnamed) wife and son back in North Carolina. When and how and why the Beards came to Bath is something that deeds and court records cannot answer — but we do know Captain Beard owned land in Bath by 1706, when he served on a local jury. An old deed for the Beard land on Bath Creek describes one border as beginning at the water oak with three marks on Glebe Creek. The other boundary bumped up against Governor Eden's property, known to Bailey, Oden, and Norris as "the tunnel land" for the long passage that supposedly ran under the ground and out to the creek (more on that in a later issue). In 1718 Eden exchanged the land bordering the Beards for another plantation on the east side of Bath Creek, but the stories of land with a tunnel in such close proximity to the mouth of the creek — ideal placement if you were to participate in any smuggling activities — were enough to send rumors swirling for centuries.
The general area of the different family properties on Bath Creek, adapted from the map in the paper by Bailey et al.
Captain Beard's wife Elizabeth (who remarried and became a Marston), or their unnamed son, kept the land in the family after James's death in 1711. Bailey, Oden, and Norris write that there are strong connections between the Beards of Bath with those of Charleston and Barbados, where Lewis found a Captain Edward Baird (an uncle or a grandfather to the Beard son in Bath, Lewis speculates) transporting passengers from Scotland in 1665. In May of 1714 someone from the Beard household claimed and received ￡6, eight shillings, eight pence for damages done to the property during the Tuscarora War. In 1718 — the crucial, final year for Blackbeard — records of quit rent payments (an annual property tax) trailed off. After Blackbeard's death, it appears that some former crew members or relatives of crew members permanently moved out to Ocracoke, where Howard, Salter, and Jackson descendants still live. Filmmaker and historian Kevin Duffus has also drawn connections on the trail of an enslaved man called Caesar; a Caesar appears in connection with land purchased by Tobias Knight (the government official who would later be accused of being in league with the pirates) in 1716, then on Blackbeard's ship in Ocracoke of 1718, and then again in June of 1719 in an inventory of Tobias Knight's possessions. In this version of events, Blackbeard's last crew, confidantes, and even conspirators within the government were not desperate fortune-seekers, but neighbors. Perhaps most compelling from a genealogical standpoint, Susannah Beard Franck — likely the only sister of Captain James Beard's heir — named her only son Edward.
V.
The Beard theory has no smoking gun; it is made up of a thousand tantalizing breadcrumbs, details that have been tweaked and twisted and exaggerated for centuries. The story is so ingrained that it seems to emanate from the land itself. It could still be wrong, but at the Carteret County History Museum, they have found that all the old stories have at least a kernel of truth to them.
"It just makes so much more sense," Juanita Paull said with conviction.
"It really does," Dee Lewis agreed. "If you've ever sailed a boat or been in a boat in Bogue Sound, Pamlico Sound, if you don't know where you're going, it's real easy to run aground … It's a dy-namic piece of real estate out there. I mean, maybe somebody from Bristol, England could get real, real good at it, but it's more likely that it's a local." Historian Kevin Duffus's hypothesis is that Blackbeard the pirate got his start when a group of Bath boys sailed down to Florida to try their luck fishing the wrecks, and returned to their home creek when they had something to show for it.
It's not outside the realm of possibility. In addition to a well-established pattern of Carolinians scavenging wrecks closer to home (as Duffus noted), pirates were known to fish the Florida wrecks. One of these pirates was Black Sam Bellamy, a man whose crew died at the hands of a Boston hangman, an event that seemed to set off disproportionate grief and vengeance for Blackbeard. Could it be there was a personal connection — that their crews had met while wrecking? That a tall young freebooter named Edward starting going by Edward "Black" Beard to sully his own reputation and present himself as a threatening figure, all the while hiding his roots in plain sight?
Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Samuel Bellamy was hanged in Boston — he himself died quite famously in a shipwreck, and some of the remaining crew were hanged. We regret the error.
Blackbeard being from Bath could explain the quick in-roads he made with Proprietary men, his knowledge of local waters, and the men who fought with him at Ocracoke. This theory would explain a lot, and Lewis notes that both research teams (from the Carteret County History Museum and Bailey, Norris, and Oden) reached the conclusion independently.
"Either we're all wrong," Lewis said staunchly, "Or we're right."
VI.
When Baylus Brooks started looking into Blackbeard in August of 2014, he had no intention of making waves. He heard the Beard hypothesis and wrote up a blog post about it — but before hitting publish, an instinct honed by about 30 years of genealogy work told him to do a spot check of information on the Teach family. His first stop: Ancestry. Brooks searched Edward Teach, sometime around the year 1700, fully expecting the search to come up empty. There was one hit: an Edward Thache in Jamaica.
"And I went, 'Jamaica??’ That's where we were supposed to find the guy in the first place!" he recounted. Brooks quickly checked Ancestry's source, which turned out to be Family Search, a database largely supported by Latter Day Saints to help church members trace ancestors for posthumous baptism. All Anglican church records from Jamaica had been transferred onto microfilm (exactly what it sounds like; images of documents shrunk down onto reels of film; you could keep an entire year's correspondence on one spool of film) in the sixties. Family Search digitized the microfilm church records and made them available online to anyone who searched. Parish records are an invaluable resource for dates of birth, death, marriage — most of the stuff of a human life. If you can find the vestry minutes, you can fill it out with money trouble and complaints. The records from the church in Kingston presented a sketch of the Thache family; first the death of Elizabeth Theach in January 1699, the marriage of an Edward and Lucretia Theach six months later, and then the 1706 death of Edward.
Brooks described his research process as consuming.
"You find something, it leads to something else, and then you follow that until you burn the hell out of it. That's the way I research. When I want to know something, I just burn, burn and burn and burn, and get everything I can, squeeze that turnip for all the blood I can get out. And then I go on to something else." He jokes that he doesn't even recognize his wife when he is absorbed in a project.
The baptism record of Cox Thache, son of Captain Edward and Lucretia Thache. Via Family Search.
Within about a week of finding the Thaches on microfilm scans, he also found records involving two Edward Thaches of Jamaica: One a captain and a father, the other his son, a young man in the British navy. Brooks pulled together a basic family history based on the material he had gathered at that point and called the office of Jamaica's Registrar General. He asked if they happened to have any plat (land schematic) records for Edward Teach. On the other end of the phone, a woman laughed. Afraid of being taken for "one of these kooks calling for Blackbeard", he told her he was after the records, not pirates. Although she said that no, they had no plats associated with the Teach name, Brooks followed up over email with his Thache family chart attached. He received word of five (five!) new records for his trouble, including one dated after Edward Thache senior's death which the younger Edward used to pass all of his inheritance to Lucretia Thache (his stepmother). The deed is almost tender, stating that Edward was relinquishing claim of his inheritance "in consideration of the love and [a]ffection I have for and bear towards my brother and sister Thomas Theache and Rachell Theache."
The deed from Edward Theache to Lucretia Theache, courtesy of Baylus Brooks, collected on his behalf by Dianne Golding Frankson of Genealogy Plus Jamaica.
What information Brooks could not acquire online, he outsourced, employing a researcher to make digitized copies of the records (having your own copies is better, he said, because you don't have to rely on another's transcription). After compiling all available public records on the family, Brooks concluded that they were the only Thaches in Jamaica at the time, and they all lived within Saint Catherine's Parish. Brooks kept burning through new topics, and ran his finds by several people he trusted, and whose opinions he valued. The reactions were variations on astonishment.
In some ways, Brooks's research calls into question the image of Blackbeard projected by the British government, the version sold to tourists every summer, the portrait painted in Johnson's General History, and the reputation clearly encouraged by Blackbeard himself. What does it mean if the black-hearted, towering man cared for his family? If he was a navy man who found he was surprisingly good at a dishonorable trade? If he came not from impossible circumstances, but a respectable family?
In other ways, Brook's research confirms the traditional telling. In A New History of Jamaica (published in 1740), Charles Leslie writes that Blackbeard's mother still lived in Spanish Town, Jamaica, that she was perfectly respectable, and that Blackbeard's brother was a captain of the train of artillery there. He does not name this upstanding mother and brother. For this, Brooks said, he wishes he could reach back in time and smack Charles Leslie around a little. Historian David Moore pointed out that Charles Johnson himself in the first edition of General History states that Edward Teach's birthplace was Jamaica, and altered (presumably corrected) it to Bristol in the second edition. In the mid-1600s, there was a minister's family from Gloucester, Reverend Thomas Teache and his wife Rachel, who were parents to Mary, Thomas, Edward, Philip, and others. In the 1660s the family moved to Sapperton (roughly 35 miles from Bristol), and in later years records in the area for Edward Thache dry up, possibly implying a move. The investigation is hindered by the fact that the Gloucester Diocese parish records were damaged by a fire in 1731, a mob in 1831, and bombing in 1940. Still, what data we have leaves room for an Edward Thache, grandson of a minister and son of a captain, born in Bristol but sailing out of Jamaica. It should be noted here that this part of the theory is presented more softly here than in Brooks's own writing — he is admittedly not much one for caveats.
VII.
Brooks's case for Edward Thache, a man Bristol-born, was published in the North Carolina Historical Review, then by the state in a well-received standalone pamphlet, and grew into a 670 page self-published book. After all, Brooks said, he had not found just one Thache, but a whole family and a history surrounding them. Still, 670 pages later, there are more questions. What can we learn about the brother who worked in a very specific military position, according to Charles Leslie? What can we learn about the Thache family allies on Jamaica? What would have caused the Thaches to move from the Bristol area to Jamaica in the first place? And why would Blackbeard retreat to North Carolina? We know that it was a good place to hide out, but why would a newcomer choose its notoriously difficult waters for a home base? Hubris, perhaps, or maybe not knowing better. Brooks is unable to travel to Jamaica to look for more tangible evidence, but he is sure more is there waiting to be found. As more pieces of information about this Edward Thache come to light, there will undoubtedly be more questions to pursue.
VIII.
The dynamic of knowing so much and yet wondering even more is a tension genealogists have to get used to. A theory can be generally accepted, but take years to pin down. The Thaches of Jamaica and Gloucestershire are two dots, with a line dotted between them in pencil — it may be a decade before it can be replaced by a straight line drawn in ink.
Although proponents of each theory disagree (sometimes bitterly) on who Blackbeard was, they agree on who he was not. Blackbeard was not even close to the most ferocious pirate who ever sailed the seven seas. That image was conjured in part by his own posturing, partly by a government on the warpath, and partly by Johnson's widespread, distrusted work (although no one, the author included, is above accepting a nugget or two of perceived truth from Johnson, should it agree with other evidence in their theory of events). Both theories have dotted lines that leave an Elizabeth in Blackbeard's wake — in Jamaica, a possible daughter, and in Bath Elizabeth Marston, a potential mother who was twice-widowed and went on to run a tavern in Edenton.
An aside: Elizabeth Marston was called to court to testify about hearing a Mr. George Allen (perhaps a bit deep in his claret) damning King George I, along with other blustering.
The work of a genealogist is granular, but if you lose sight of the broader picture, you're in danger of being caught in a web of your own weaving. Both sides share frustration at missing pieces, documents missing because of fire, war, or mysterious circumstances; surely there would be a more complete portrait if only that church had been kept safe, if only the trial records had survived the fire. As compelling as it is to have documents signed by an Edward Thache in Jamaica, there may well be an Edward Beard of Bath on record somewhere or (more likely) there is some middle ground explanation, that there were some previously unknown friends for him to come home to in Bath. Often the simplest explanation is the truth, but the human element always brings with it the possibility of reason-defying surprise. The theory you subscribe to depends on the holes you decide you can live with. And perhaps the bridge to fill those gaps is only one forgotten reel of microfilm away.
If you’d like to learn more on your own, check out these free resources:
For the younger crowd, a quick rundown of how microfilm works
Join Family Search for free and try punching in a few names
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NOTES
a pet named Saw Blade: Guthrie, Bob, editor. Decatur Gillikin, the Mightiest Man to Ever Hoist a Sail. Carteret County Historical Society, Morehead City, 2009. p. 2.
to turn one more page: In an interview, Kevin Duffus told this great story about finding a key piece of the puzzle while searching for a Fresnel lighthouse lens that had been missing for 150 years. He was working through materials at the Library of Congress, and it was five minutes till closing. A security guard was hovering over him, insisting that he had to wrap up. His gut told him to just turn one more page -- and there on that next page was the solution to the mystery.
"All these tales are true": Guthrie, Bob, editor. Decatur Gillikin, the Mightiest Man to Ever Hoist a Sail. Carteret County Historical Society, Morehead City, 2009. V.
Johnson's General History repeated: Johnson, Charles. A General History of Pirates. Second Ed., T. Warner, London, 1724, p. 70. Via archive.org
presumably pardoned or exonerated: John Martin's name appears in Beaufort County in the Beaufort County Deeds Book (as an esquire, no less) in 1720, 1723, and 1726 -- long after the trial. Duffus, Kevin. "The Last Days of Blackbeard the Pirate" 4th ed., Looking Glass Productions, Raleigh, 2014. p. 173
merchant-mariner: Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 251
South Carolina: Ibid., 261.
leaving his earthly possessions: James Beard's will, Quoted in Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 261
owned land in Bath by 1706: Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 261.
An old deed for the Beard land: Ibid., 263.
"the tunnel land": Ibid., 256.
Eden exchanged the land: Ibid., 256.
Elizabeth (who later remarried): Ibid., 253.
kept the land in the family after James's death: Ibid., 271.
Beards of South Carolina and Barbados: Ibid., 260.
and Barbados:
Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 295
and
Duffus, Kevin. "The Last Days of Blackbeard the Pirate" 4th ed., Looking Glass Productions, Raleigh, 2014. p. 187
Captain Edward Baird: Dobson, David. Directory of Scottish Settlers in North America, 1625-1825, Volume I. Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 1984. p. 231.
￡6, eight shillings, eight pence: Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 262
records of quit rent payments: Ibid., 265
Howard, Salter, and Jackson: Interview with Chester Lynn, July 2020
and
Ballance, Alton. Ocracokers. University of North Carolina Press, 1989, p. 21-2, citing the 1790 census.
drawn connections on the trail of an enslaved man called Caesar: VA Museum of History & Culture. "What's wrong with Blackbeard?" by Kevin P. Duffus (Video) Online video clip. Vimeo. Vimeo, 3/21/2015. Web. Accessed 10/27/20
named her only son Edward: Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 273.
sailed down to Florida: VA Museum of History & Culture. "What's wrong with Blackbeard?" by Kevin P. Duffus (Video) Online video clip. Vimeo. Vimeo, 3/21/2015. Web. Accessed 10/27/20
well-established pattern of Carolinians scavenging wrecks: Interview with Kevin Duffus, 5/19/20.
and
Butler, Lindley S. "North Carolina 1718: The Year of the Pirates." The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. XCV, No. 2, April 2018. p. 136
pirates were known to fish the Florida wrecks: Earle, Peter. The Pirate Wars. New York City, Thomas Dunne Books, 2006. p. 160
and
'America and West Indies: May 1716, 16-31', in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 29, 1716-1717, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1930), pp. 76-101. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol29/pp76-101 [accessed 12/10/20].
Black Sam Bellamy: I think this is in the calendar of state and colonial papers Balogh, Allen. “When Pirates Scoured the Treasure Coast.” Indian River Magazine, 26 Apr. 2019, www.indianrivermagazine.com/when-pirates-scoured-the-treasure-coast/.
vestry minutes: Just for a sampling, you can page through some of colonial NC's vestry minutes here.
Elizabeth Theach in January 1699: Brooks, Baylus C. “‘Born in Jamaica, of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate.’” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 92, no. 3, 2015, p 273. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44113270. Accessed 7/2020.
marriage of an Edward and Lucretia Theach: Ibid., 273.
1706 death of Edward: Ibid., 252-4
One a captain: Ibid., p. 255
and a father: "Baptisms, marriages, burials 1669-1764, Vol. 1" Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880. Family Search, n/a. www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939F-DZJP-5?i=22&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AVHDB-FG8. Accessed 10/23/20. [Look, I'm not going to lie. That might not be the way one should cite a document within a search within a website. Just know the link goes to the baptism of Cox Thache, with father Edward Thache listed]
his son, a young man joining the British navy: Brooks, Baylus C. “‘Born in Jamaica, of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate.’” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 92, no. 3, 2015, p 254. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44113270. Accessed 7/2020.
"in consideration of the love and [a]ffection": Deed to Lucretia Thache, via: “Deed — Edward Thache to Lucretia Thache—10 Dec 1706.” Edited by Baylus C Brooks, Baylus C. Brooks, Professional Research & Maritime Historian, Author, & Conservator, n/a. Accessed 10/15/20. baylusbrooks.com/index_files/Page526.htm.
they were the only Thaches in Jamaica: Brooks, Baylus C. “‘Born in Jamaica, of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate.’” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 92, no. 3, 2015, p 250. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44113270. Accessed 7/2020.
Charles Leslie writes that Blackbeard's mother still lived on Jamaica: Leslie, Charles. A New History of Jamaica, London, J. Hodges, 1740. 275.
brother was a Captain of the Train of Artillery there: Leslie, Charles. A New History of Jamaica, London, J. Hodges, 1740. 275.
Historian David Moore pointed out: In interview, August 2020
minister's family from Gloucester: Brooks, Baylus C. “‘Born in Jamaica, of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate.’” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 92, no. 3, 2015, p 257. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44113270. Accessed 7/2020.
Thomas Teache and his wife Rachel: Ibid., 257
1660s the family moved to Sapperton: Ibid., 257
in later years records for Edward Thache trail off: Ibid., 258.
the Gloucester Diocese parish records were damaged: Ibid., 249
referenced an Edward Thache in his will: Ibid., 255
in Jamaica, a possible daughter: Ibid., p. 255
Elizabeth Marston...twice-widowed and went on to run a tavern: Bailey et al. "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology." North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, vol. 28 no. 3, 2002. p. 296