Sarah Davis and the Pirates

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 

Week 15 (Apr. 9-15): Big Mistake 

One of the biggest (and most common) mistakes people make while doing genealogy research on sites like Ancestry.com is adding ancestors based on other people's trees without doing their own research. I am absolutely guilty of this, especially when I started my tree many years ago. Over the years, I have gone through each line and corrected my many errors when I come across them, but ancestors I added in error previously still pop up from time to time. The best practice is to use Ancestry trees (if you must) as a guide, but only add ancestors to your tree if you can find documentation to support the lineage.

Most recently, the mistake I came across was for the parents of my 7th great-grandmother, Sarah (Davis) Bray. I had been hunting for an ancestor to qualify me for the Order of Descendants of Pirates and Privateers (ODPP) for months and thought I had finally made a breakthrough. Most trees on Ancestry, and the community tree on FamilySearch and WikiTree, incorrectly had her parents as John Davis and Ann Harraden of Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Qualifying for the Order of Descendants of Pirates and Privateers

Membership in the Order of Descendants of Pirates & Privateers is open to men and women 21 years of age and over, who are lineally or collaterally descended from any of the following, of the period 1609-1865:
Officers and Crew of Pirate Ships, of any Nation, so long as such Pirates were of, or engaged the American Colonies or Nation.
Officers and Crew of American Privateers, including those of the Confederacy,
Coastal Raiders,
Shore-based parties engaged in the diversion and scuttling of vessels,
Any person who engaged in the establishing, supporting, and/or maintaining any of the above. For instance, ship owners, investors, bonders, those issuing Letters of Marque, etc. The involvement must be direct- those merely employed in ship-building do not necessarily qualify.

ODPP allows one to descend collaterally (sibling of an ancestor) from a pirate or privateer to join. The line I was hoping to use was through John Harraden, son of Edward Harraden & Sarah [Unknown], uncle to Ann Harraden, the woman I originally thought was Sarah Davis's mother. John was the owner of a sloop named the Squirrel which was captured by pirates on 14 April 1724 while his son, Andrew, commanded the ship. The pirate, Captain John Phillips, forced the crew to work for him and continue building the yet-unfinished ship. Eventually, the crew revolted and overtook the pirates, winning the ship back. In the end, this line would not have qualified me for ODPP anyway, as it was the son of John Harranden who was forced to work for the pirates, not John himself, which is too removed from my lineage.

While working on gathering the necessary documents for this lineage, I was unable to find any birth record for Sarah, or anything linking her to her parents, which led to the discovery that there were multiple women named Sarah Davis in Gloucester during this time. In an attempt to prove this lineage, I researched each Sarah to determine which family she belonged to.

Gloucester Vital Records

In the vital records for Gloucester, we find two girls named Sarah Davis born in the late 1600s.

In the marriage records, we find three different women named Sarah Davis married in the early 1700s.

Three Women Named Sarah Davis in Gloucester (late 1700 - early 1800)

I. Sarah (Davis) Bray 

Sarah (Davis) Bray was born about 1692 [not verified] in Gloucester to unknown parents. There is no listing for her in the Gloucester early vital records. She married Nathanaell [Nathaniel] Bray on 7 February 1714. She died sometime after 1741. They had at least three children together:

    1. Isaac Bray

    2. Sarah Bray (1718 - 4 June 1720)

    3. Nathaniel Bray Jr (my 6th great-grandfather)

Research note: Nathaniel Bray Jr is another ancestor who is also commonly confused with another man of the same name (who happens to be his second cousin). This Nathaniel Bray is the patriot who allowed me to join the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR). He served during the American Revolution two separate times. First with Captain Barnabas Dodge's 6th company of Colonel Loammi Baldwin's 38th regiment from May 1775 to the end of 1776. Next, he served for two weeks in August of 1779 in Captain Nathaniel Fales' company on an expedition to Bagaduce as part of land support for the Penobscot Expedition by order to General Solomon Lovell.

The Essex Antiquarian, Sidney Perley, July 1907. Descendants of Thomas Bray in Gloucester. Vol. 11, No. 3, Pg. 101.

According to The Essex Antiquarian, Sarah and Nathaniel did not die until sometime after 1741. Sarah (Davis) Low and Sarah (Davis) Haskell died in 1724 and 1735, respectively.

II. Sara[h] (Davis) Low 

Sarah (Davis) Low was born on 20 April 1698 in Gloucester to parents John Davis and Ann Harraden. She married Symonds Low on 8 December 1719 in Gloucester. She died on 6 August 1724 in Gloucester at the age of 26. Sarah and Symonds had at least three children together:

• Thomas, b. 1720
• Sarah, b. 1721
• John, b. 1722

        I give unto my Two Grand Children, John Low, and Sarah Low -

        five[?] pounds in money to each of them to be paid in like manor when

        they come to age or on Marriag[sp] Day as afore.

In the will of John Davis [link requires a paid account to AmericanAncestors.org], written 24 March 1728 (almost four years after the death of his daughter Sarah (Davis) Low), his grandchildren John Low and Sarah Low are listed. Further proof that this Sarah Davis was not the wife of Nathaniel Bray.

III. Sarah (Davis) Haskell

Sarah (Davis) Haskell was born on 2 December 1685 in Gloucester to parents Jacob Davis and Elizabeth Bennett. She married Joseph Haskell on 13 January 1705 in Gloucester. She died on 25 March 1735 in Gloucester at the age of 49. Sarah and Joseph had at least five children together:

• Jonathan, b. 1710
• Susanna, b. 1712
• David, b. 1715
• Isaac, b. 1716
• Ruth, b. 1719

IV. In addition, Jacob Davis and Mary (Haskell) (Davis) Woodward have previously been attached as the parents of my Sarah Davis. This couple does not appear to have had a child named Sarah at all.

Unfortunately, after this research, I have still not determined who the parents are of my Sarah Davis. No birth or baptism record appears in Gloucester for her, and the marriage records and intentions of this time did not specify parent names. This period is also very far back to attempt to try to rely on autosomal DNA to solve the mystery. 

But what about the pirates?

Luckily this "big mistake" has not disqualified me from joining the Order of Descendants of Pirates and Privateers. I took another deep dive into my tree and searched for ancestors that had ANYTHING to do with seafaring (mariners, shipbuilders, anyone who even lived near the water) and I found an interesting story about the son of one of my Acadian ancestors. This ancestor, Charles Dugas, was the son of Claude Dugas, my 9th great-grandfather, and lived a very interesting life. If you want to read more about Claude Dugas, I highly recommend reading the very in-depth article by Roberta Estes of DNAeXplained, "Claude Dugas (1649-1732), Acadian Octogenarian Armorer."

Now back to Charles. Charles was the half-uncle of my 8th great-grandfather François and 9th great-grandmother Françoise (if you have Acadian ancestors, you are going to relate to them in a whole number of different ways!). Charles was born on 18 February 1709 in Port-Royal, Acadie, Nouvelle-France to parents Claude Dugas and his second wife, Marguerite Bourg. He married Anne Robichaud on 28 January 1732 in Annapolis Royal (formerly Port-Royal). They had at least nine children together.

Planned route of the Pembroke exile ship

On 8 December 1755, Charles and his family were forced to board the ship Pembroke for exile to North Carolina. Seven ships were involved in this exodus, but the Pembroke had only eight English crewmen. When bad weather separated the Pembroke from the other boats in the party, the Acadians revolted and took control of the ship. They sailed to Saint Mary's Bay and then up the Saint-Jean River. It was here the Acadians encountered the British and a skirmish ensued. The British were forced to retreat and the Acadians burned the boat so it would not fall again into enemy hands. The exiled families traveled by foot to the village of Sainte-Anne-des-Pays-Bas where they spent the winter. Some families next went north to Quebec where supplies and food were easier to find. Charles and his family went north to the Camp d'Espérance on the Miramichi (present-day New Brunswick), which was established at the end of the summer of 1756. In early 1761 they were recorded on a census in Caraquet with two children, and later that year as a family of only three.

Prisoner list from Fort Beauséjour

Unfortunately, on 24 August 1763, Charles and his children Pierre, Osite, Jean, and Madeleine, were found on a list of prisoners at Fort Beauséjour (Fort Cumberland). It was likely his wife, Anne, had passed previous to this as she was not listed. His children Charles, Jean, and Pierre eventually made it to Louisiana, but this is the last record we have of Charles Dugas Sr. He died sometime after 24 August 1763 and it is not known if he ever made it to Louisiana with his family.

For more information about the Pembroke and the Acadian families' stories see:

• Pembroke Passenger List Reconstructed by Paul Delaney
• The Acadian Refuge Camp on the Miramichi, 1756-1761 by Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc
• List of family names at Port-Royal in Acadie and along the Rivière du Dauphin before the Great Upheaval (1755) - Government of Canada