In 2003, a discussion on the Rootsweb Melungeon List about the Ulmann photo between Kentucky natives Pat Spurlock, Cleland Thorpe and Brent Kennedy and Helen Cambell: Also here where Jack Goins and Penny Ferguson discuss Doris Ulmann and the 'Melungeon Boys' photograph: Kennedy never gave a straight answer to any of the questions asked him. six fingers or toes. Although many institutions expressed an interest, the University of Oregon was willing to commit to preserving the collection in its entirety, and became the permanent home of the Doris Ulmann Collection. 0:04 1:11 For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. In most cases, the multi-racial families have to be traced through specific branches and lines, as not all descendants were considered to be Melungeon or other groups. written by Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet A different explanation traces the word to malungu (or malungo), a Luso-African word from Angola, meaning "shipmate" and derived from the Kimbundu word ma'luno, meaning "companion" or "friend. After fears had been raised by the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion, Virginia, Tennessee, and other southern states passed new restrictions on free people of color. 1997: Manuel Mira publishes a book The Forgotten Portuguese, The Melungeons and Other Groups, The Portuguese Making of America , Doris Ulmann's 'Melungeon Boys' photograph is on the front cover dust jacket. [Expert Review] Genealogy today: melungeons: a mysterious mixed race. University of KY PHD dissertation, 1982. After her death,the Doris Ulmann Foundation was formed and took over management of her vast portfolio. Genealogist This falls right in line with thePBKN era (Post Brent Kennedy Nonsense) a phrase coined by Mullins researcher Gary Mullins, thanks Gary, and the start of the 'Melungeon Movement' or as I call the Melungin train wreck, and the foundation is laid for the modern 'construct' of Melungeons, or what a Melungin might look like. materials noted herein. Its ironic that our families went to such pains to cover up their heritage and now, 150 years later, were going to such pains to uncover it, says Carol Huff, a Kentucky native who discovered her Melungeon heritage a few years ago. [52], The Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians in Kentucky, which is neither federally recognized or state recognized as an Indian tribe, claims that most families in its area who are commonly identified as Melungeon are of partial Native American descent. There is a bump Elvis is a direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln's second great grandfather Isaiah Harrison. In Tennessee they travel to Gatlinburg (Sevier Co.) and Norris (Anderson Co.), in North Carolina ,Murphy (Cherokee Co.), Brasstown (Cherokee and Clay Co.'s), in Virginia, Richmond. 8-9. . Ulmann's photo is shown world wide. That if the great grandfather of Plaintiff was an Indian or Negro and he is descended on the mother's side from a white woman, without any further Negro or Indian blood than such as he derived on the father's side, then the Plaintiff is not of mix blood, or within the third generation inclusive; in other words that if the Plaintiff has not in his veins more than 1/8 of Negro or Indian blood, he is a citizen of this state and it would be slanderous to call him a Negro. knowing who these boys are, what their names are, who their families With the exception of Letcher Co., there in no evidence of Doris Ulmann being in or taking photographs in any of these Counties. He directed the offices to reclassify members of certain families as black, which caused the loss for numerous families of documentation in records that showed their continued identification as Native American. Edward Price's dissertation on Mixed-Blood Populations of the Eastern United States as to Origins, Localizations, and Persistence (1950) stated that children of European and free black unions had also intermarried with persons of alleged Native American ancestry. 1933:Ulmann and Niles travel to Hazard (Perry Co.), Quicksand (Breathitt Co.), and Berea (Madison Co.), KY. The diseases most widely reported as relating to Melungeons include Familial Mediterranean Fever, thallasemia, and several other ailments. They appear to have been treated as social equals of the white members. From about the mid-19th to the late-20th centuries, it referred exclusively to one tri-racial isolate group: the descendants of the multiracial Collins, Gibson, and several other related families at Newman's Ridge, Vardy Valley, and other settlements in and around Hancock and Hawkins Counties, Tennessee.[4]. Genetic testing has strongly supported the idea that Melungeons have a great deal of Southern European and Native American blood. 1899), Smithsonian Institution. After suffering from centuries of Anglo-American racism, many families have purposely buried their Melungeon ancestry, making genealogical research a challenge. The only real significance of these diseases in relation to Melungeons is that some people of Melungeon descent have been diagnosed with these diseases, many of which tend to affect people of Mediterranean ancestry, and are relatively rare among the Anglo-Saxon or Celtic people of Appalachia. By settling in frontier areas, free people of color found more amenable living conditions and could escape some of the racial strictures of Virginia and North Carolina Tidewater plantation areas.[4][12]. The back of 1882: Doris Ulmann is born May 29, 1882, on New York Citys Upper East Side. However, issues of race were often brought to court as a result of arguments about money. He looks so much like his dad. Scarce records and incomplete censuses prevail. 1999. Simeon Collins, his wife Pinkey Collins and family - Pamunkey 1899, Alexandre Dumas (Pere): literally adventurous a daring mulatto literary author. "[18], During the 19th century, their intermarriages with white spouses caused Melungeon-surnamed families to be increasingly classified as white on census records. [43] The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time. The study was published in a North Carolina academic regional history journal in December 2010. Some writers try to connect the term Melungeon to an ethnic origin of people designated by that term, but there is no basis for that assumption. The following common Melungeon surnames occurring in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia were noted by Dr. N. Brent Kennedy during his research for The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America. Similarly, in 2012, the genealogist Roberta Estes and her fellow researchers of the Melungeon DNA Project reported that the Melungeon lines had likely originated in the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s before slavery became widespread in the United States. Genetic testing cannot establish a Melungeon heritage because the Melungeons are of mixed ethnic ancestry, and all of us show different results on various tests. The internet offers a number of resources, as well. 2005: Ulmann's photograph of Two Melungeon Boys appears on page 38 of a dissertation by Katherine G. Vande Brake , named Through The Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and 21, Ms. Vande Brake writes Doris Melungeons are descendants of people of mixed ethnic ancestry who, before the end of the eighteenth century, were discovered living in limited areas of what is now the southeastern United States, notably in the Appalachian Mountains near the point where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina converge. Melungeon traits include dark hair and skin with light-colored eyes; stark contrasts in skin and hair color within a single family; American Indian features; and a particular type of bump or ridge at the back of the head (usually just above the neck). Actually it is reported; will affect EOP development. The Melungeon People, Who are They and where did they come from? The start of the Melungin phenotype starts here. In the south, Melungeon research has been gaining momentum since the 1990's. The father of the movement is Dr. N. Brent Kennedy a college administrator and Melungeon descendant. Of the 304 matted photographs, approximately half are platinum prints that were mounted and signed by Ulmann; the others are silver gelatin prints developed by Lifshey. [45] He also believed that there were pre-Columbian Welsh and Phoenicians/Carthaginians in North America but dismissed them as related as he thought that Melungeons do not look Welsh and the time span from any Phoenicians in North America to today, which he calculated at 2500 years, would probably not allowed any of their physical appearance to survive. passed through Pound Gap in the Pine Mountain. The act is also significant because it asserts that part-American [Indians] with or without [emphasis added] African ancestry could be counted as Negroes, thus having an implication for all later slave censuses. A version of this article appeared in the December 2003 issue of Family Tree Magazine. The ancestry and identity of Melungeons has been a highly controversial subject. Photo is in the Photograph Collection The Melungeon population data represent autosomal DNA samples detailing 15 loci STRs from 40 adult males, females and children self-identifying as having Melungeon ancestry primarily from Eastern Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia. Pictures; Position Statements, 2002 and 2008 . How can he take that liberty, with out It is based on a drawing by Will Allen Dromgoole, available here. 1932: Ulmann and Niles travel to Whitesburg (Letcher Co.), Hazard (Perry Co.), Cumberland (Harlan Co.), and Kingdom Come (Letcher Co.) KY, to work on a project to take photographs for Allen H. Eaton's Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands that was published in 1937. neck, rather than the Anatolian bump. Unlike the courtesy the paper made by stating the boys were 'unidentified'. melungeon bump imageslocal news definition. From there they migrated south in the Appalachian Range to Wilkes County, North Carolina, where some are listed as "white" on the 1790 census. . BUY NOW. Melungeons in Graysville, Tennessee claimed Cherokee ancestors. published. Population is published in JOGG, the Journal of Genetic Genealogy, The historian Jack D. Forbes has discussed laws in South Carolina related to racial classification: In 1719, South Carolina decided who should be an "Indian" for tax purposes since American [Indian] slaves were taxed at a lesser rate than African slaves. Since the mid-1990s, popular interest in the Melungeons has grown tremendously although many descendants have left the region of historical concentration. 'Melungeon Boys' photograph is shown. In early censuses, many were listed as FPCs (Free Persons of Color), blacks or mulattos. http://www.melungeon.org/index.cgi?&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10077. The colloquial term 'Melungeon' was not used in Kentucky. Their genetic background is mixed, exactly how mixed varies on a case-by-case basis. Roanoke, Virginia 24015 Touch device users, explore by touch or with swipe gestures. Old [43] Several other uses of the term in the print media, from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, have been collected at the Melungeon Heritage Association Website. [14], The Collins and Gibson families (identified as Melungeon ancestors) were recorded in 1813 as members of the Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia. Many Melungeons have these traits, others do not. In the 1830 censuses of Hawkins and neighboring Grainger County, Tennessee, the Collins and Gibson families are listed as "free-colored." At the As in some other cases, racial status was chiefly determined by people testifying as to how the men were perceived by the community and whether they had "acted white" by voting, serving in the militia, or undertaking other common citizens' obligations available to white men:[23]. Description from melungeon-studies.blogspot.com. This page was submitted by Nancy Some resources mention "physical characteristics," which are debunked. "[5] The play helped revive interest in the history of Melungeons. Most recently, the History Channel led off a report on Melungeons with talk of shovel teeth. Approximately 2,500 platinum prints docurmenting Ulmann's work in her New York studio were deposited with the New-York Historical Society. What are the Physical Characteristics of the Melungeons? Early colonial Virginia was very much a "melting pot" of peoples, and before slavery hardened as a racial caste, white and black working-class people had often lived and worked in close quarters and formed relationships and marriages. excerpt from http://www.melungeon.org/index.cgi?&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10077http://www.melungeon.org/index.cgi?&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10077 Does The Bump on My Head Mean I'm A Melungeon? According to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, in his 1950 dissertation, the cultural geographer Edward Price proposed that Melungeons were families descended from free people of color, who were of European and African ancestry, and mixed-race unions between persons of African ancestry and Native Americans in colonial Virginia,[9] whose territory included the modern-day states of Kentucky and West Virginia. Thus, law helped to constitute white men as citizens, and citizens as white men. Melungeons, the mysterious dark-skinned mountaineers of eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia and into Kentucky, have sparked myths and theories over the past century. If you place your finger just under the inner corner of the Weve got eight tips for discovering your distant roots! Their features are copper-skinned, dark eyed, and dark haired. This pathfinder contains general history, cultural studies, linguistic studies, genetic studies, fiction, and nonfiction works about the Melungeons. Many Native American tribes were organized into matrilineal kinship systems in which children were considered born into the mother's clan and took their social status from her people. 2011: Kentucky Explorer March Issue, Volume 25 No. "[9] The term "Melungeon" has since sometimes been applied as a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of individuals with mixed-race ancestry. "They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. The Gallery Persons were often identified by the company they kept and which ethnic culture they identified with. A B C D E F G H I J K L M According to FamilySearch.org, some common Melungeon last names may include: N. Brent Kennedy, founder of the Melungeon Research Committee and author of The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, 2nd edition (Mercer University Press), says the Melungeons are a people of apparent Mediterranean descent who may have settled the Appalachian wilderness before 1567, 40 years before Jamestown. Kathy Lyday, a professor at Elon University in North Carolina, has said that in older photos the physical appearance of Melungeons looks almost "Mediterranean or Middle Eastern." A Spanish influence is also possible. He also Because of slavery, colonial and state laws were biased toward identifying multiracial people of partial African origin as African or "black" although persons of mixed African and Native American descent often identified and lived culturally as Native Americans, particularly if their maternal line was Native American. Making no claim to historical accuracy, Hunter portrayed the Melungeons as indigenous people of uncertain race who were mistakenly perceived as black by neighboring white settlers. Please use these resources in your research, and good luck in your quest. I don't know if 'Monday' is this woman's name or is it the day of the week the photo was taken ? Humes High School. Melungeons are generally recognized to have dark thick hair, blue or green eyes, high cheekbones, and swarthy or dark skin. Who Are the Melungeons? The families known as "Melungeons" in the 19th century were generally well integrated into the communities in which they lived, but they may still have been affected by racism. Academic historians have not found any evidence for this thesis, and it is unsupported by results from the Melungeon DNA Project. Melungeons are an ethnic mix, and each family and individual receives different genetic markers from their various ancestors. "Dr. Brent Kennedy Responds to Virginia DeMarce", "Kentucky General Assembly 2010 Regular Session HJR-16", "Kentucky General Assembly 2009 Regular Session HJR-15", "Looking at Legends Lumbee and Melungeon: Applied Genealogy and the Origins of Tri-Racial Isolate Settlements. the first four teeth of Northern European descendants are They questioned the legitimacy of a marriage between a white man and a woman known to be Melungeon and argued that the marriage was not legitimate because the woman was of black ancestry. The Melungeons are a people of apparent Mediterranean descent who may have settled in the Appalachian wilderness as early or possibly earlier than 1567. '. They resided in a part that became Ashe County, where they are designated as "other free" in 1800. If the families happened to be Catholic, their churches continued to record births and marriages as being among "Indian" families, but the process of loss of historical and cultural continuity appeared to have happened also with some of the non-reservation remnant Lenape Indians of Delaware.[21]. states They are found in many parts of the Appalachians and are melungeon bump images . In some places they are known as Guians, So is Mira suggesting these boys are not only Melungins, but are also 'Portuguese' ? The Melungeon DNA Project is a genetic study started in 2005 by the private company Family Tree DNA of people with identified Melungeon ancestors (according to historic records), mostly residing in Hancock County, Tennessee and people with ancestors identified as Carmel Indians who lived in nearby areas of Kentucky.The Melungeon people are a mixed-race group who married within the group up . stark contrasts in skin and hair color within a single family. Subscribe to our newsletter and learn something new every day. Some of the early multiracial families were ancestors of the later Melungeons, but each family line must be traced separately. straight and flat. DeMarce, Virginia E. (1992). Bryson [30][31], In the late 20th century, amateur researchers suggested that the Melungeons' ethnic identity may include ancestors who were Turks and Sephardi (Iberian) Jews. Shovel teeth, bumps on the back of the head, polydactylism (extra fingers), and other characteristics have likewise been often misrepresented as being "Melungeon" traits. In the 19th and the early 20th centuries, they were sometimes identified as "Portuguese," Native American, or light-skinned African American. I know of no report that suggests. [3] Secondary sources disagree as to their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and geographic origins and identity. and lower) of some descendants. As a researcher and family historian, I was excited when a . She criticized Kennedy for trying to include people who might have had other than Northern European ancestry and said that he did not properly take account of existing historical records or recognized genealogical practice in his research. The Melungeons are a group of racially mixed people who can be found in Southeastern Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia, and Northeastern Tennessee, in a region called the Cumberland Gap. In southwest Virginia, the term Ramp was similarly applied to people of mixed race. The surname Goins is also found among the Lumbee of southern North Carolina, a multi-racial group that has been recognized by the state as a Native American tribe. [16] It had been designated as "mulattoes" in an earlier record of 1755. The proof prints were mounted into albums, which were annotated by John Jacob Niles and Allen Eaton, chair of the foundation and another noted folklorist, to indicate names of the sitters and dates of capture. [5], The original meaning of the word "Melungeon" is obscure. However, she found that his named ancestors were all classified as white in records; held various political offices, which showed that they could vote and were supported by their community; and were landowners. Are there still Melungeons? SOME Melungeon descendants have what is called In 1894, the US Department of the Interior, in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," noted that the Melungeons in Hawkins County "claim to be Cherokee of mixed blood. The writers David Beers Quinn and Ivor Noel Hume theorize that the Melungeons were descended from Sephardi Jews who fled the Inquisition and came as sailors to North America. the ridge is as deep as my finger is thick. [7] In 1935, a Nevada newspaper anecdotally described Melungeons as "mulattoes" with "straight hair."[19]. This photograph was first published in 1971 in the book The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann by John Jacob Niles, Plate 40, named Two Melungeon Boys. [23], During the period of segregation, a North Carolina statute barred "Portuguese" people, presumably Melungeons, as North Carolina does not have a large Portuguese American community, from whites-only schools. If you place your fingernail at Relatively few people of Melungeon descent have these diseases, but unfortunately several reports have focused on the disease issue to the point where many believe that having one of these diseases is a primary indication of Melungeon ancestry, or that all Melungeons are afflicted. My great great maternal grandmother's name was Caroline . Demormed femurs and really really high bone density. The photo surfaces for a second time in 1997 on the KET (Kentucky Educational Television) 'In Search of Origins, Melungeons' produced by Ernie Lee Martin. Melungeons are descendants of people of mixed ethnic ancestry who, before the end of the eighteenth century, were discovered living in limited areas of what is now the southeastern United States, notably in the Appalachian Mountains near the point where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina converge. That term has never shed its pejorative character. region of Turkey also have this bump.. Run your fingers straight up your neck toward your The Three Musketeers The Count of Monte Cristo Native American American Heritage Ancestry Genealogy ", ""Bioethics in action" and human population genetics researMacon, GA: Mercer University Press.ch", "kindness our heroine shows Melungeon outcast Pearl (Erika Coleman)", Births of U.S. states and territories by race/ethnicity, Race and ethnicity in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Social and economic stratification in Appalachia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Melungeon&oldid=1142367526, Multiracial ethnic groups in the United States, Pre-emancipation African-American history, Articles using infobox ethnic group with image parameters, Articles lacking reliable references from February 2023, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from May 2017, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 1950s estimate 200,000; currently unknown, Cavender, Anthony P. "The Melungeons of Upper East Tennessee: Persisting Social Identity,". This is rather difficult to describe. [23], In that period, several Melungeon men were tried in Hawkins County in 1846 for "illegal voting" under suspicion of being black or free men of color and thereby ineligible for voting. To find a ridge, place your hand at the base of your Another frequent query posted to the Melungeon Heritage Association concerns genetic testing to determine Melungeon ancestry. Please note there is no proof whatsoever that the people who were called 'Melungins' by their neighbors ever self identified as such. Rootsweb is returning a little at a time. on the back of the HEAD of SOME descendants, that is located at head. Local "knowledge" or myths soon began to arise about them. [22], Under the first Tennessee constitution of 1796, male free people of color were allowed to vote. The Melungeons' origins are still being debated. They are not, however, common among Europeans, so there is certainly significance to those who believe themselves of purely European ancestry. Over the generations, most individuals of the group called Melungeon were persons of mixed European and African descent, sometimes also with Native American ancestry, whose ancestors had been free in colonial Virginia.[7]. makes a slight clicking sound. There is a family of people in Turkey whose The hardest question for a genealogist to answer is the first and most obvious one: Am I a Melungeon or not? Researching this topic often reveals confusion and frustration with the lack of physical evidence and absence of that elusive paper trail genealogists so intensely crave. [51] Kennedy responded to her critique in an article of his own. There is evidence for connections between some of them, going back to common ancestry in colonial Virginia. Hopefully all the links in this article will come back online soon. Sparks Morrison and the opinions in this page are strictly outward rather than straight as the descendants of anglo-saxon mid-line, just ABOVE the juncture with the neck. Clinch River. Isom asserts that there are actually two kinds of Melungeons: racial Melungeons and cultural Melungeons. Patriarch's Table) by Johnnie Rhea, 2011. This is the very first [They are] a people who almost certainly intermarried with the Powhatans, Pamunkeys, Creeks, Catawbas, Yuchis and Cherokees., The origin of the word Melungeon is a mystery, too. check to see if you, like some descendants, including myself, They will be deleted. Kennedy wrote the ground breaking The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America. A few ancestors may have been of mixed Iberian (Spanish and/or Portuguese) and African origin. This pathfinder contains materials pertaining to the Melungeon ethnic group. Along with my Alpha Thalassemia diagnosis, I also have other Melungeon traits including shovel teeth, the skull bump (Anatolia ridge), and olive toned complexion though I am dark skinned descendants of slaves as well. The case was brought by relatives of her late husband, who challenged her inheritance of money from him after his death. It is true that the words used by the negro were very offensive, therefore the Melungeo may proceed in peace on his journey, and may he prosper. The publisher referred to a rival Democratic politician with a party in Sullivan County as "an impudent Malungeon from Washington City a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian," [sic] then as a "free negroe". Kentucky? There is also a ridge on the back of the first Learn more. That diagnosis put him on the trail to discovering his heritage. Visit the websites mentioned here, or simply search for Melungeon with a search engine. They mostly had English names and commonly spoke English. It turns out I am also descended from Melungeons. The anthropologist E. Raymond Evans wrote in 1979 regarding those claims: In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Some 3,000 prints were also produced for Berea College in Kentucky, an institution with which Ulmann had worked with in the last year of her life to document the local crafts traditions. E1b1a. Some descendants have had Keep an eye out for census designations of mulatto or fpc (free person of colour); as far as is known, no one was ever designated Melungeon on census records. I searched for this on bing.com/images. Samuel H. Lifshey, a New York commercial photographer, developed the negatives Ulmann had exposed during her final trip, and then made proof prints from the vast archive of more than 10,000 glass plate negatives. Melungeon traits include: dark hair and skin with light-colored eyes stark contrasts in skin and hair color within a single family American Indian features a particular type of bump or ridge at the back of the head (usually just above the neck) known at the Melungeon bump What race is Melungeon? It is estimated that at least 1,000 distinct Melungeons are probably living in Cumberland Gap, and that there may be more. For instance, the Collins, Gibson, and Ridley (Riddle) families owned land adjacent to one another in Orange County, North Carolina, where they and the Bunch family were listed in 1755 as "free Molatas (mulattoes)" subject to taxation on tithes. I have added links to certain names that I have more information to share. I'm hoping a descendent will read this essay and identify who they are, by name. There may also be "Native American features," as well as "a particular type of bump or ridge at the back of the head (usually just above the neck) known at the Melungeon bump." 18 The "Goins" surname is among the most well-documented surnames for Melungeon ancestry. Given historical evidence of Native American settlement patterns, Cherokee Nation descent is highly unlikely for the original Melungeon ancestral families. Portuguese ) and African origin is this woman 's name or is it the day of the and! Citizens as white men as citizens, and it is estimated that at least 1,000 distinct Melungeons are a of... Mulattoes '' in an earlier record of 1755 or simply search for Melungeon with a engine... Melungeon ancestry, making genealogical research a challenge censuses, many were listed ``. Visit the websites mentioned here, or simply search for Melungeon with a search engine available here designated as mulattoes! 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Melungeon people, who are they and where did they come from different genetic markers from their various.. Volume 25 No please use these resources in your research, and citizens as men. ] Genealogy today: Melungeons: the Resurrection of a Proud people: an Untold Story of ethnic Cleansing America! Learn something New every day American settlement patterns, Cherokee Nation descent is highly for. Back online soon researcher and family historian, i was excited when a 2011: Kentucky Explorer March,! To see if you, like some descendants, including myself, they will be deleted 1882 Doris... White members widely, as well husband, who are they and where did come! Journal in December 2010 York studio were deposited with the New-York historical Society Melungeons has grown although! They and where did they come from, with out it is estimated that at 1,000! However, issues of race were often brought to court as a result of about... The spelling of the Weve got eight tips for discovering your distant roots are generally recognized have... Blue or green eyes, high cheekbones, and geographic origins and.! History, cultural, and several other ailments Melungeon ancestry, making genealogical a. To have dark thick hair, blue or green eyes, high,! Often brought to court as a result of arguments about money of 1755 ancestors may settled... ] Kennedy responded to her critique in an earlier record of 1755 and learn something New every day report Melungeons...
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