Aspects of Family History: Criminal Ancestry - Pirates

Why is it, we wonder, that clients want to prove their descent from criminals, particularly the colourful ones like pirates? It seems that everyone is seeking that particularly different ancestor to place in their family tree.

In the seventeenth century there were some famous pirates, like Henry Morgan (born 1635, Llanrhymney, Glamorgan, Wales--died Aug. 25, 1688, probably Lawrencefield, Jamaica.). He was a Welsh buccaneer, the most famous of the adventurers who plundered Spanish Main, as Spain's Caribbean colonies were called during the late 17th century. Operating with the unofficial support of the English government, he undermined Spanish authority in the West Indies.

Morgan's origins and early career are unknown but he may have been one of those who joined the expedition of 1655 to seize Jamaica from the Spanish to convert it into an English colony. He may then have proceeded to Cuba in 1662.  In the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), he was second in command of the buccaneers operating against Dutch colonies in the Caribbean.

As an official commander of buccaneers, Morgan captured Puerto Príncipe (now Camagüey), Cuba in 1668. He made an extraordinarily daring attack on the Isthmus of Panama when he stormed and sacked the well-fortified city of Portobelo. He went on to make successful raids on wealthy Spanish settlements around Lake Maracaibo on the coast of Venezuela the following year.

In August 1670, with 36 ships and nearly 2,000 buccaneers, Morgan set out to capture Panamá, one of the chief cities of Spain's American empire. On January 18th 1671, having crossed the Isthmus, Morgan defeated a large Spanish force and entered the city and burned it to the ground while permitting his men to loot it. He deserted his followers on the journey home taking most of the booty with him.   Morgan's raid on Panamá took place as England and Spain had concluded a treaty of peace, so he was arrested as a pirate and, in April 1672 he was transported to London. Relations with Spain had never been without incident and quickly deteriorated. Son King Charles II had Morgan released from jail in 1674 and knighted him, sending him out again as deputy governor of Jamaica, where he lived as a wealthy and respected planter until his death.
One of his crew wrote an exaggerated account of Morgan's exploits thereby creating the popular reputation for him as a bloodthirsty pirate.

Blackbeard was the nickname of an English pirate, Edward Teach (or Thatch),­ (b. Bristol?, Eng.--d. Nov. 22, 1718, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina). He attacked ships in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast of North America from 1716 for a couple of years. Having been a privateer during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) he then turned to piracy operating from a base in an inlet on the North Carolina coast. He converted a captured French merchantman into a 40-gun warship, "Queen Anne's Revenge," and soon became notorious for outrages along the coasts of Virginia and Carolina, the name of Blackbeard bringing terror to the minds of the inhabitants of the coastal settlements. He shared his booty from raiding and forcibly collecting tolls from shipping in Pamlico Sound and in the Caribbean Sea with Charles Eden, governor of the North Carolina colony. This  prize-sharing agreement came to an end when the lieutenant governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood dispatched a British naval force to pursue Teach at the request of Carolina planters. A militia force under Lieutenant Robert Maynard succeeded in killing Teach after a hard fight on Nov. 22, 1718.

Teach’s head with its luxuriant black beard which had earned him his nickname was affixed to the end of the bowsprit of his ship. The decapitated pirate's body was thrown out on the foreshore and never buried. The legend of a great buried treasure has never substantiated and, perhaps, it never existed, unless it was recovered by the governor!

Anne Bonny was one of the two most famous female pirates. She sailed as one of the crew of Calico Jack Rackham, another privateer of the period and a pirate of some renown. Anne was romantically involved with Calico Jack but she was as fearless as any other pirate. Born in County Cork, Ireland, the daughter of an Attorney by his maidservant, the lawyer had left the Emerald Isle for the Carolinas  in disgrace. He bought a large plantation and amassed a fortune.  A ne'er-do-well sailor named James Bonny married Anne in an attempt to steal the plantation but Anne's father disowned her. Bonny then took Anne to the Bahamas where he turned informer to Governor Woodes Rogers. For substantial reward from the prize monies he would turn in as a  pirate any sailor he didn't like. Bonny was put out of work when Governor Rogers issued an amnesty for pirates.

Anne quickly grew to despise her spineless husband and was soon attracted to Calico Jack Rackham, The admiration between Anne and Calico was mutual. Calico Jack was a handsome man who knew how to spend money as well as steal it. Well-endowed and with a fiery spirit Anne also had a temper that matched that of any man. Calico offered to buy Anne from Bonny. Instead of agreeing Bonny reported to Governor Rogers. The Governor sentenced Anne to be flogged and returned to her husband. Calico and Anne stole a sloop, slipped out in the harbour that night, and resumed a life of piracy together.

Always dressed in men's clothing, Anne was an expert with pistol and cutlass She was as dangerous as any male pirate, fearless in battle and often joined a boarding party. Hearing of the presence of the "Revenge", the governor of Jamaica, sent an armed sloop to intervene. They surprised and caught Calico's ship because the pirates and were taken far too easily. In October of 1720, to Anne dismay at their cowardly fighting, she and Mary Read, were captured. 

The parents Mary Read are unknown, but, born in London, her widowed mother raised her as a boy. By the age of thirteen she was employed as a foot boy to rich French woman, but soon ran away to join a man-o-war. A few years later she jumped ship, only to enlist in a foot regiment. In Flanders she fought with great bravery, and later joined a horse regiment.  She confessed to a soldier with whom she fell in love and they were married. They opened an Inn called the "Three Horseshoes" near Castle Breda in Ireland. When her husband died Mary returned to wearing men's clothing and attempted once again to become a soldier. She failed and took ship to the West Indies once more. Calico Jack boarded her ship on the way there. Another female, Anne Bonny, was already part of Calico's crew. Seeing the strapping young sailor among the newly captured prize Anne told the young man that he liked him. Mary then confessed to Anne that she too was a woman. Mary decided that she would much rather join with Rackham and Anne rather than lead the dull life a woman and she too became one of Calico's pirates. As it was Calico was a fairly successful pirate and his crew manage to capture several ships. As fate would have it Mary fell in love with a newly captive sailor who had recently signed the articles of the ship. Their honeymoon was short lived for shortly after, Mary, Anne and Calico Jack were taken prisoner.

Confessing to being women Anne and Mary pleaded that they were pregnant at the time and should be tried separately after giving birth. They did receive separate trials from the men who were tried at St, Jago de la Vega in Jamaica on 28th November 1720 and were all sentenced to be hanged.  Suffice to say Mary had as much spirit as Anne, probably more than many of her male companions. Upon being asked at her trial why a woman might turn to piracy, rather than giving an answer by which she might have been pardoned, she replied, "That as to hanging, it is no great hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so unfit the Seas, that men of courage must starve."  Even so, the women were still sentenced to hang. Mary Read escaped the hangman’s noose by dying from fever while in jail.

Anne Bonny received several stays of execution. Then it appears no more was recorded officially. Perhaps her father may have forgiven his daughter and bought her a ransom taking her back to the Carolinas, or the records simply do not exist. This is what makes placing pirates and other such colourful criminals in your family tree so hard.

Bartholomew Roberts, otherwise BLACK BARTY was born about 1682, near Haverfordwest, Wales.  He was the buccaneer captain of a succession of ships--the "Royal Rover," "Fortune," "Royal Fortune," and "Good Fortune"--who burned and plundered ships from the coasts of West Africa to the coasts of Brazil and the Caribbean and as far north as Newfoundland. His conquests are said to have included more than 400 vessels. He rivalled the feats of Sir Henry Morgan.

Roberts took to piracy late, after the age of 37, but he quickly rose to captaincy. He even designed a flag for himself, portraying a giant figure of himself standing, sword in hand, astride two skulls labelled A.B.H. for "a Barbadian's head"; and A.M.H. signifying"a Martinican's head". He was finally felled by grapeshot in battle with a pursuing British warship off the Guinea coast of Africa, dying on 10th February 1722.

William Kidd, named CAPTAIN KIDD was born about 1645 at Greenock in Renfrewshire, Scotland. A British privateer and semi-legendary pirate Kidd became celebrated as one of the most colourful outlaws in English literature. Fortune seekers have hunted his buried treasure in vain through succeeding centuries. Kidd's early career is obscure. He went to sea as a youth and from about 1689 he was sailing against the French as a legitimate privateer for Great Britain in the West Indies and off the coast of North America. In 1690 he was an established sea captain. He was also a ship and property owner in New York City. From time to time he was commissioned to rid the coast of enemy privateers by both New York and Massachusetts. In London in 1695, he received a royal commission to apprehend pirates who molested the ships of the East India Company in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean.

Kidd sailed from Deptford on his ship, the "Adventure Galley", on 27th February 1696, calling in at Plymouth, and arriving at New York City on the 4th July  to take on more men. Avoiding the normal pirate haunts, by February 1697 he arrived at the Comoro Islands off East Africa. It was apparently some time after his arrival there that Kidd, still without having taken a prize ship, decided to turn to piracy for himself. In August 1697 he made an unsuccessful attack on ships sailing with Mocha coffee from Yemen but later took several small ships. His refusal two months later to attack a Dutch ship nearly brought his crew to mutiny, and in an angry exchange Kidd mortally wounded his gunner, William Moore.

Kidd took his most valuable prize, the Armenian ship "Quedagh Merchant", in January 1698 and scuttled his own unseaworthy "Adventure Galley". When he reached Anguilla, in the West Indies in April 1699.  There he learned that he had been denounced as a pirate, so he left the “Quedagh Merchant” at the island of Hispaniola. There it may have been scuttled, but in any event, its questionable booty and treasures disappeared. Kidd sailed in a newly purchased ship, the "Antonio", to New York City, where he tried to persuade the Earl of Bellomont, then colonial governor of New York, of his innocence. Bellomont, however, sent him to England under arrest. He was found guilty of the murder of Moore and on five indictments of piracy during the trial that took the 8th and 9th May, 1701. Important evidence about two of the piracy cases was suppressed probably for fear of bounty hunters. It was later questioned whether the evidence was sufficient for a guilty verdict.

Kidd was hanged on the 23rd May 1701 at Tyburn Hill just outside of London. Some of his treasure was recovered from Gardiners Island off Long Island. Proceeds from his effects and goods taken from the Antonio were donated to a charity for distressed sailors and their families. Over the years that followed, the name of Captain Kidd has become inseparable from the romanticized concept of the swashbuckling pirate of fiction. Among other stories concerning caches of treasure he supposedly buried is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug."

The age at which pirates generally died is also a troubling factor in placing pirates in your family tree. Aside from the fact that baptisms of any children would rarely happen (pirates were not generally god-fearing people!) they may not have lived long enough to produce issue connecting them to your family tree directly.

Tracing the ancestry of such dangerous folk can be the ultimate challenge to a family tree detective, but with our fantastic library – which even includes some transcripts of West Indies parish registers – we fan sometimes find answers to the hardest questions. The family history of each of us is different: few of us have such notoriety in out genealogy but one thing is sure – whether tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man or thief, we can find who your ancestors truly were. At a cost of £450 – even payable in monthly amounts of first £75 - this is an important and exciting journey that all can undertake.