'I Married a Ghost Pirate': the Curious Story of Amanda Teague and Her 300-year-old Dead Lover

Facts

In China, “minghun” marriages, translated to English as a “spirit marriage”, is a well-established tradition, albeit rarely practiced today. Across mainland China, women can engage in a minghun to marry her fiance’s spirit, before adopting a child to carry on his family lineage.

According to Grave Vows: A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Varying forms of Ghost Marriage among Five Societies by Lucas J. Schwartze, a rooster must be present at the ceremony to represent the groom, the woman must take a vow of celibacy and immediately move in with her husband’s family following the wedding.

The practice was banned by the Communist Party in 1949, during Mao Zedong's reign. But the ritual still endures, especially in remote regions of the country.

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Amanda cutting her wedding cake in front of a Pirates of the Caribbean poster and pirate flag.AMANDA TEAGUE

In all these examples, however, the deceased has been a person who was known to the bride prior to his death. Teague claims to have met Jack as a ghost. She never knew him while he was alive. If he was ever alive.

Teague says she doesn’t even know what Jack looks or sounds like. The couple communicate with each other through mediumship, and the only thing Teague knows about her husband’s physical appearance is that he is of African descent and presents himself as a man in his early 50s—the age he died.

Newsweek could not verify Jack Teague’s existence. Haiti Birth, Marriages and Death data collections on Ancestry.com date back to 1794. According to Teague, her husband was executed by hanging in 1753, after he was caught assisting the escape of slaves who were being traded.

Teague insists her husband’s physical existence was the inspiration for the fictional character “Jack Sparrow” who features in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. Sparrow’s father, played by Keith Richards, is the former pirate lord of Madagascar and a captain that goes by the name of Edward Teague.

Around the time the couple met in 2015, Teague was working part-time as Northern Ireland’s only female Jack Sparrow impersonator and although the coincidence may seem far-reaching for most, she insists the “real Jack” reached out to her in the afterlife because of her obsession with the movie franchise.

Entertainment reports contradict her claims. According to NME, Jack Sparrow was created by screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and inspired by the real Keith Richards and Looney Tunes character Pepé Le Pew.