> > None of this, of course, helps me find the definite link between > Thomas Durham in Bermuda and Thomas Durham in Virginia. I did find, > however, that Bermuda was actually a part of the Virginia colony and > always had close ties; it was even called "Virgineola" during the > early days of British colonialism. I also learned that it was common > for Bermuda planters to have land in Virginia. That doesn't prove > anything about Thomas Durham, but it raises the level of possibility > that they may have been the same person. Even the Jamestown settlers > appear to have gone to Virginia from Bermuda, according to the (ahem, > Wiki-source) I used. For evidence suggestive of a link between Thomas Durham of Bermuda and Thomas Durham of Richmond County, Virginia, I submit the following: 1. Both the father and the son of Thomas Durham of Bermuda were mariners, leading to the supposition that Thomas was also a mariner. 2. In Bermuda, the settlers (company employees) were forbidden to build ships, to encourage them to grow tobacco. This meant that mariners had to establish relationships with shipwrights and boatwrights elsewhere. 3. Thomas Durham of Richmond County married, for his second wife, Dorothy Gilbert(?), granddaughter of William Smoot, BOATWRIGHT of Charles County, Maryland. The evidence that Dorothy was Thomas's second wife comes from a deed from William Smoot, Jr. and from Thomas Durham's will, both of which identify son Thomas, Jr. as the eldest son of DOROTHY (not of Thomas). I am descended from Thomas's presumed elder son Samuel, who in 1704 witnessed the wills of two first cousins of Dorothy (Gilbert?) Durham. Sources are on Samuel and Thomas Durham's wikitree profiles at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Durham-206