The Melungeons

The Black Patriots Memorial Project

Maurice A. Barboza Founder

mbarboza@comcast.net

703-299-0408


'Our Mission is to construct a memorial to the more than 5,000 black soldiers of the American Revolution. The memorial also honors the tens of thousands of slaves who ran away to freedom and petitioned courts and legislatures to set them free. Black freedom seekers who served with the British also would be honored.'"

Artifacts from Vardy, TN

Artifacts from Vardy, Hancock County,Tennessee

Katherine Vande Brake, Professor of English and Technical Communication

King College, Bristol, TN

The items from Vardy that E. W. King Library at King College adding to the DLA collection restate the themes so clearly outlined in Michael Joslin's introductory essay to the digital library project--community, isolation, religion, literacy, and hard work. However, these photographs, records of the Vardy Presbyterian Church, and other documents also expand the collection in an important way. Many of the people who lived in the Vardy community were descendants of the Melungeons and can trace their family lines back to the first Melungeons in Tennessee--Vardiman Collins, Shepherd Gibson, and Irish Jim Mullins who came to take up land grants in what was then Hawkins County shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. So the Vardy artifacts provide an opportunity to see and understand how a significant Appalachian minority group lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century. They also show the effect of missionary work in the southern mountains
Vardy, named after early settler Vardiman Collins, is a narrow valley between Powell Mountain and Newman's Ridge just north of Sneedville, Tennessee, the county seat of Hancock County. "

Katherine Vande Brake is also the author of How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia


How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia ( Melungeon Series)

Genealogy Blog 2005 February

The Melungeons Blog

Joe Edmon[email] @ 3:04 pm Sat, Feb 26, 2005
We have blogged about the Melungeons before, now Helen Campbell has started a blog dedicated to Melungeon research, The Melungeons. permant link for The Melungeons Blog."

Yahoo! News - Churches OK Jamestown Remains DNA Testing

Churches OK Jamestown Remains DNA Testing

Thu Feb 24, 6:25 PM ET Science - AP


By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer

NORFOLK, Va. - A historical society hoping to prove that an unearthed skeleton is that of a Jamestown founder has won permission from two English churches to dig up graves believed to belong to the pioneer's relatives.

Archaeologists must conduct more tests to determine whether the graves indeed contain remains but, if so, DNA testing could begin this spring, the nonprofit Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities said Thursday...

Historical Archealogy Enlightens Family Research

Who's who in Jamestown

Centennial of the incorporation of Jamestown, 1827-1927

Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown

HoustonChronicle.com - DNA helps African-Americans trace ancestry

DNA helps African-Americans trace ancestry

By BARBARA KARKABI

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

It took six weeks for James Jacobs to find out about his long, lost ancestors — a life-changing event capping years of research.

He had traced his paternal family back to his great-great-grandfather Francois Jacob, born into slavery in 1820. Like other African-Americans documenting family history, Jacobs then hit a wall.

Then he read about a company that could take his DNA from a cheek swab and trace his lineage to an ethnic group within an African country."


God Code: The Secret of Our Past, the Promise of Our Future

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Jewish "again": DNA unlocks secrets in New Mexico

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Jewish "again": DNA unlocks secrets in New Mexico

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. "As a boy, the Rev. William Sanchez sensed he was different. His Catholic family spun tops on Christmas, shunned pork and whispered of a past in medieval Spain. If anyone knew the secret, they weren't telling, and Sanchez stopped asking.

Three years ago, after watching a program on genealogy, Sanchez sent for a DNA kit that could help track a person's background through genetic footprinting. He soon got a call from Bennett Greenspan, owner of the Houston-based testing company."

The Melungeon DNA Surname Project

Family Tree DNA Founder Bennett Greenspan


US Maps at RandMcNally.com


Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

Strange Events

" President Theodore Roosevelt wore a ring containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair when he was inaugurated in 1905. The hair had been cut by Dr. Charles C. Taft, one of the attending physicians the night of the assassination. The hair was purchased by John Hay on February 9, 1905, and was given to Roosevelt less than a month later. In his Autobiography, Roosevelt wrote, 'When I was inaugurated on March 4, 1905, I wore a ring he (John Hay) sent me the night before, containing the hair of Abraham Lincoln. This ring was on my finger when the Chief Justice administered to me the oath of allegiance to the United States.'"



Lincoln's Ladies: The Women in the Life of the Sixteenth President

Coalfield.com

Wise County will celebrate its 150th birthday next year.

The county was formed out of portions of Lee, Scott and Russell counties in February 1856, according to William Gobble, president of the Wise County Historical Society."

New Book Released about Wise, Virginia:


Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell

The Pyramids of Teotihuacan by Kelly Ann Pritchard

"Considered to be the site of the oldest city in Mesoamerica, the Teotihuacan pyramids are located in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and carbon testing indicates they were built anywhere from 200 B.C. To 650 BC. It is believed the original occupants left, and the site was abandoned for about 500 years until the Aztecs arrived and settled on the same land. When the Aztecs arrived the pyramids were overgrown mounts of dirt and plants, and were thought to be burial grounds of Gods."


Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living

Indiana ancestors

"More than 163 families descended from white women, 38 descended from freed slaves, 15 from American Indians and nine from white men who married or had children by free African-American women.

Heinegg states that the majority of the remaining families descended from white women, since they first appear in court records in the mid-18th century, when slaves could not be freed without legislative approval, and there is no record of such emancipations. Light is also shed on the origins of the Lumbees, Melungeons and other mixed-race groups."


The Challenge of African American Research

African American Research, Part 1

African American Research, Part 2

South African Homelands, 1986

Finding Your African American Ancestors: A BeginnerÆs Guide

African American Links and Resources

African American Genealogy Program at Indiana Historical Society

Celebrating African American Family History

Black Roots: A Beginner's Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree

African American Family Histories

CD-ROM: African Americans in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census

American Genealogical-Biological Index on CD-ROM, Ancestry.com Announces African-American Heritage Collection, and more.

Database of African Genealogy

African American Research, Part 3: Case Studies

Help for African American Research

RootsWeb: Melungeon-L Kingsport Times/Hawkins Co TN project update

"From: 'PennyFerguson'
Subject: Kingsport Times/Hawkins Co TN project update
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 08:06:52 -0500

Here's an article in the Kingsport Times about the Hawkins Co TN project, we're really all going to benefit from the work of these volunteers, I surely do appreciate them.

Penny


Volunteer archivists on treasure hunt through Hawkins County Courthouse
Tuesday, February 01, 2005

By JEFF BOBO
Times-News




ROGERSVILLE - They say that one man's junk is another man's treasure."

Jack Goins 

Penny Ferguson