The Melungeons
"'Black Indian' Lists Prove Helpful
From Brent Kennedy
January 25, 1998
W. A. Plecker's list of 'mongrel Virginians' proved quite helpful in our recent efforts to demonstrate how Melungeon mixed-race families migrated westward from eastern Virginia, and how many Appalachian surnames correspond with Plecker's list of 'mongrel' surnames of eastern Virginia. See Kennedy Responds to DeMarce.
While Dr. Virginia DeMarce and I have had our differences over the degree of expansiveness of the Melungeon population (and its original ethnic make-up), I continue to hold her general research skills in high regard. My criticisms of DeMarce have never been related to the accuracy of her work in relation to the written record, but simply that her work has invariably excluded significant data - and population groups - that were either not reflected at all, or inaccurately reflected, in the written record. To demand that official census records, or written tribal/clan histories, be produced to verify one's existence, is to effectively exterminate the vast majority of Native American, African, and Melungeon/mixed-race heritage. Most people in these populations were not even permitted to learn to read and write, thus ensuring that their histories would never be 'properly' recorded. And the ruling whites of the time were generally recording records in only four classifications: white (northern European), red (Native American), black (sub-Saharan African), or mulatto (a combination of the first three). There was no option for Arab, Jew, Berber, Turk, etc., save to be pigeon-holed into one of the first three, or to be assigned to the last 'catch all' category. While I take pride in all my ancestors who fit into the first three, as well as the mulatto category, I also "
The Challenge of African American Research
From Brent Kennedy
January 25, 1998
W. A. Plecker's list of 'mongrel Virginians' proved quite helpful in our recent efforts to demonstrate how Melungeon mixed-race families migrated westward from eastern Virginia, and how many Appalachian surnames correspond with Plecker's list of 'mongrel' surnames of eastern Virginia. See Kennedy Responds to DeMarce.
While Dr. Virginia DeMarce and I have had our differences over the degree of expansiveness of the Melungeon population (and its original ethnic make-up), I continue to hold her general research skills in high regard. My criticisms of DeMarce have never been related to the accuracy of her work in relation to the written record, but simply that her work has invariably excluded significant data - and population groups - that were either not reflected at all, or inaccurately reflected, in the written record. To demand that official census records, or written tribal/clan histories, be produced to verify one's existence, is to effectively exterminate the vast majority of Native American, African, and Melungeon/mixed-race heritage. Most people in these populations were not even permitted to learn to read and write, thus ensuring that their histories would never be 'properly' recorded. And the ruling whites of the time were generally recording records in only four classifications: white (northern European), red (Native American), black (sub-Saharan African), or mulatto (a combination of the first three). There was no option for Arab, Jew, Berber, Turk, etc., save to be pigeon-holed into one of the first three, or to be assigned to the last 'catch all' category. While I take pride in all my ancestors who fit into the first three, as well as the mulatto category, I also "
African American Research, Part 1
African American Research, Part 2
Finding Your African American Ancestors: A BeginnerÆs Guide
African American Links and Resources
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
Database of African Genealogy
Help for African American Research
posted by Helen Campbell @ 4:27 PM
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