Melungeons, history, genealogy, research, articles - About the MHA

Melungeons, history, genealogy, research, articles - About the MHA: "About the Melungeon Heritage Association

The Melungeon Heritage Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Melungeon history and heritage. Most people are aware that MHA sponsors the biannual Unions, multi-day gatherings for the presentation of information about our people. We also sponsor one-day gatherings, which occur on the �off� years between Unions. These gatherings are only a part of the work of MHA, however. This organization is also dedicated to several other areas.

Our primary area of concern is telling the story of the Melungeon people and continuing to put together the mosaic of our past that has been hidden for so long. To this end, MHA supports research efforts aimed at documenting the history of the Melungeons and other mixed-ancestry people. At the same time, MHA wants to begin to collect and preserve the artifacts of our past. This will form the groundwork for our long-term dream of a Melungeon Research Center, which would give all our materials a permanent home.

Our mission is to document and preserve the heritage and cultural legacy of mixed-ancestry peoples in or associated with the southern Appalachians. While our focus will be on those of Melungeon heritage, we will not restrict ourselves to honoring only this group. We firmly believe in the dignity of all such mixed ancestry groups of southern Appalachia and commit to preserving this rich heritage of racial harmony and diversity. "

RootsWeb: Genealogy Mailing Lists: Melungeon

RootsWeb: Genealogy Mailing Lists: Melungeon: "Ethnic-Mixed: Melungeon Mailing List

Melungeon-L

Topic: people conducting Melungeon and or Appalachian research including Native American, Portuguese, Turkish, Black Dutch, and other unverifiable mixed statements of ancestry or unexplained rumors, with ancestors in TN, KY, VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, WV, and possibly other places.

For questions about this list, contact the list administrator at Melungeon-admin@rootsweb.com. "


Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

Melungeon Family Genealogy Forum

Melungeon Family Genealogy Forum: "Melungeon Family Genealogy Forum"

Melungeon Health

Melungeon Health: "The Melungeon Health Education and Support Network "

Melungeon Family Photo Album

Melungeon Family Photo Album: "Melungeon Family Photo AlbumMelungeonFamilyPhotoAlbum@groups.msn.com"

Yahoo! Groups : MelungeonOrigin

Yahoo! Groups : MelungeonOrigin: "Activity within 7 days:

Description

This forum is intended for serious discussion of Melungeon origins and history. Please see our Links. Submit any honest ideas. See Bookmarks for links to other Melungeon sites including some other E-Groups.

Photo is of Arch Goins and family, Graysville Melungeons some 70 years ago. See Files to view another photo of a Melungeon"

Yahoo! Groups : tmanewsletter

Yahoo! Groups : tmanewsletter: "Activity within 7 days:1 New Link - 1 New Message

Description

The Multiracial Activist Newsletter is an informational digest of news, events, new websites and other information of interest to individuals who perceive themselves to be biracial/multiracial, interracial couples/families and the transracial adoptee community. Published irregularly, with special alerts as news items warrant. The Multiracial Activist Newsletter is registered with the Library of Congress, Washington, DC - ISSN: 1522-6905. "

Yahoo! Groups : HistoricalMelungeons

Yahoo! Groups : HistoricalMelungeons: "Researching the Historical Melungeon families who came with the friendly Indians to Scott County, Virginia and settled in Hancock County. NO TAG LINES PLEASE"

The Atlantic Community

The Atlantic Community: "The Atlantic Community
About Me
Name:ToddG
View my complete profile

The Atlantic Community: An Introduction

March 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
The Atlantic Community: An Introduction
Greetings and welcome to The Atlantic Community!

The Atlantic Community is a forum exploring the concept of the Atlantic Ocean as a zone of cultural contact between African, European and American societies. People, goods, and ideas have crossed the Atlantic on a regular basis since the sixteenth century, and because of this, the societies of the Americas, Europe and Africa which face the Atlantic Ocean form an interconnected network."

Turkish Torque

Turkish Torque: "Monday, March 21, 2005
The First Turkish Blog on the Internet

I have deleted the claim 'the first Turkish blog on the internet' from this blog's title because my younger brother Serdar Kilic, a very nice computer engineer from Australia, has proven to me that his blog was on the net in 2002 before mine.

Here is the link to Sedar's Radio blog.

Serdar's current blog is at http://weblog.kilic.net/

Technically this may still be the oldest Turkish blog served from the same server and at the same URL, but the distinction is a bit academic at this point.

If there are other blogs on the net even older than Serdar's please let me know. I'd love to acknowledge them as well."

From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish-American Dialogue

Daughter of the Legend

Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

RootsWeb: Melungeon-L Re: [Melungeon] Pulaski Ky

"Melungeon-L Archives

From: 'Penny Ferguson'
Subject: Re: [Melungeon] Pulaski Ky
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:53:03 -0500
References: <000801c52f91$835cfd40$e826e104@hppav>

This massacre was never reported in any newspapers or books at the time mentioned, it is said that it was handed down through the Cherokee generations. McCreary County KY joins Pulaski County.

YAHOO FALLS MASSACRE, McCREARY COUNTY, KENTUCKY

Kenneth Barnett Tankersley, Ph.D.Native American Studies Program

Northern Kentucky University

Copyright 2004, 2005

Introduction

Yahoo Falls is located in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, National Park Service, McCreary County, Kentucky. 'Yahoo' is a local variation of the Cherokee word, Ya-hu-la, used in reference to a story about a trader who lived in a great stone house and was taken away by the Nu-ne-hi, the Spirit People. 4 Ya-hu-la would sing his favorite songs as the bells hanging around the necks of his ponies tinkled, echoing through the mountains along the Great Tellico Trail. One time, all the warriors left on a hunt, but when it was over and they returned, Ya-hu-la was nowhere to be found-the Nu-ne-hi had taken him to the Spirit World. While he was there, Ya-hu-la made the mistake of eating the food of the Nu-ne-hi, which meant that he could never return to his people except as a spirit. Although he was never seen again, the Cherokee believe that the songs of Ya-hu-la and the tinkling bells of his horses can still be heard at night near the running water of Yahoo Falls. On the Trail of Tears, the story of Ya-hu-la was used "

Melungeons, history, genealogy, research, articles - Some Misconceptions

"Does The Bump on My Head Mean I'm A Melungeon?

Much has been made, in the press and on the Internet, about so-called 'Melungeon diseases,' or physical characteristics such as 'shovel teeth' or 'Anatolian ridges' on the base of the skull. Some reporters and writers have widely misinterpreted these traits as indicators of Melungeon ancestry. Many people involved with Melungeon research have been approached by someone who has said, "Feel the back of my head" am I a Melungeon? Others, upon learning of one's Melungeon heritage, will ask, "What is that disease you guys have?" Although these characteristics are significant in each individual's family and genetic history, they do not necessarily represent Melungeon ancestry.

The diseases most widely reported as relating to Melungeons include Familial Mediterranean Fever, thallasemia, and several other ailments. 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. Those who have one of these diseases have reason to believe that someone in their ancestry had an ethnic disposition to this particular disease. However, it is a mistake to assume this ailment, in and of itself, is an indication that one is a Melungeon. 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."

The Last Lost Tribe in America

"Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America by Elizabeth Hirschman
A message from the author:

I've sent to the www.melungeons.com website a brief overview of each chapter in my forthcoming book 'Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America'. I hope this will clarify what the book proposes and what sources of evidence are used. I believe the book may now be advance-ordered from Mercer University Press. It contains nine chapters and uses a variety of documentary sources including historical writings, genealogies, archeological excavations, ethnography, religious traditions, migration patterns, naming practices and genetic testing data to support the thesis that the earliest non-Native settlers in Appalachia (ca. early 1500's CE onward) were Sephardic Jews and Muslim Moors who had been displaced from Iberia. It contains also several photographs, maps, charts and appendices, most of which have not been presented before in discussions of Melungeon/early Appalachian settlement.

1. Melungeon Mythology: Who Are We and How Did We Get Here?"

Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

Are the Melungeons the Lost Tribes of Israel? by Isreal Villa

"Are the Melungeons the Lost Tribes of Israel?

WHO ARE THE DANITES OF ISRAEL?

By Israel Villa

Introduction

There are 12 tribes of Jacob who is Israel. The tribe of Dan was the fifth child born of Jacob. Each tribe had certain distinct functions in the nation; Judah is the leader and good with hands Deuteronomy 33:7, Genesis 49:10, Issachar knew the times to do things! Chronicles 12:32, the Levites were priests, and so on. The specialty of the Danites was the building of ships and commerce by sea, Judges 5:17."

Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

Research by Virginia DeMarce

"1850 - 1880 Hancock County, TN Census

This study is limited to the Tennessee Melungeons of
Hawkins/Hancock County (with what can be learned
specifically about them in the counties from which their
ancestors came, and the counties to which members of their
families moved). It does not use the term 'Melungeon'
generically to describe tri-racial or possibly tri-racial
settlements in the remainder of Tennessee's counties, much less
all over the Upper South.

TO BE DONE:

Generally speaking, we all need to do a
lot of Grayson Co., VA (organized 1792
from Wythe and Patrick), research on these
TN Melungeon-related lines."
============================

The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People. An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America

Melungeon Genealogy

"Lewis M. Jarvis

1903 Interview

Hancock County Times [Tennessee]

Vardy Collins, Shepherd Gibson, Benjamin Collins, Solomon Collins, Paul Bunch and the Goodmans, chiefs and the rest of them settled here about the year 1804, possibly about the year 1795, but al these men above named, who are called Melungeons, obtained land grants and muniments of title to the land they settled on and they were the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west. They came from the Cumberland County and New River, Va., stopping at various points west of the Blue Ridge. Some of them stopped on Stony Creek, Scott County, and Virginia, where Stoney Creek runs into Clinch River.

The white emigrants with the friendly Indians erected a fort on the bank of the river and called it Fort Blackmore and here yet many of these friendly Indians live in the mountains of Stony creek, but they have married among the whites until the race has almost become extinct. A few of the half bloods may be found-none darker- but they still retain the name of Collins and Gibson, &c. From here they came to Newman's Ridge and Blackwater and many of them are here yet; but the amalgamations of the whites and Indians has about washed the red tawny from their appearance, the white faces predominating, so now you scarcely find one of the original Indians; a few half-bloods and quarter-bloods-balance white or past the third generation.

The old pure blood were finer featured, straight and erect in form, more so than the whites and when mixed with whites made beautiful women and the men very fair looking men. These Indians came to Newman's Ridge and Blackwater. Some of them went into the War of 1812-1914 whose names are here given; James Collins, John Bolin and Mike Bolin and some others not remembered"

BBC News | Americas | Lost people of Appalachia

"Melungeons lived for generations in isolated ramshackle cabins

By BBC Correspondent Richard Lister in Appalachia

In the heart of Appalachia in the southern United States, an isolated, dark skinned people known as the Melungeons, are challenging the accepted version of modern America's earliest history.


Richard Lister on the trail of a lost people

For centuries, they remained almost invisible to the American mainstream. They live hidden away on inaccessible mountain ridges, and a racially segregated society wrote them off as a mixture of white, black and American Indian.

Now, evidence is emerging which suggests that the Melungeons may have been among America's very first settlers, arriving in Appalachia long before the Northern Europeans.
Off the beaten track

I went to Newman's ridge in Tennessee, on the trail of the Melungeons, but first I had to find the town of Sneedville."

Native Americans - Metis

"Metis

Batoche National Historic Site

As with most Canadian websites, you have a French version available. Louis Riel selected Batoche as the headquarters of his 'Provisional Government of Saskatchewan.' Several buildings have been restored here which depict the lifestyle of the Metis between 1860 and 1900."

'Hawk's Nest' by Hubert Skidmore

Tunnel builder's deaths during Depression was state's dirty secret for decades

Sunday, September 19, 2004

By Tom Birdsong, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The sickness started slowly, subtly.

First, a red ring around the eyes. Then a cough, followed by shortness of breath.

'HAWK'S NEST'

By Hubert Skidmore

University of Tennesee Press


Quickly, though, the cough became wracking and a man would nearly choke trying to catch his wind. Then he died, all in less than a year's time.

Hubert Skidmore's novel lays out hundreds of such deaths in a read that is shocking and depressing.

Based on true events that occurred in the early 1930s in south-central West Virginia, where thousands of Depression-starved men headed from across the country when they learned of work in a huge tunnel being drilled where the New and Gauley rivers joined to form the Kanawha River.

The state of West Virginia billed it as a massive project to divert river water into a 3-mile hole to spin a turbine and create electricity for the public.

But in reality, the $4 million project was a sweetheart deal with the Union Carbide Corp., which needed the juice for a smelting plant it planned to build below the tunnel on the Kanawha.

West Virginians didn't know that, just as the 5,000 men who would eventually work in the tunnel weren't told another nasty secret:"


Hawk's Nest

Melungeon Gathering in July 2005

The next event sponsored by the Melungeon Heritage Association will be in Frankfort, Kentucky on July 29-30, 2005. Plans are still being made at this time, and we hope to make this a free event if possible. Tentative plans are to hold research seminars at the Kentucky History Center and Kentucky State Archives on Friday the 29th - both facilites contain a wealth of records, for surrounding states as well as for Kentucky. On Saturday, presentations will be made in the Holiday Inn Capital Plaza Conference Center.

The Holiday Inn has special room rates available for this gathering:

http://www.holidayinnfrankfort.com/

(Use this link to get hotel information, but make your reservation by phone to get the special discount for this event.) More information will be posted on this site as plans develop further -- but mark your calendar now and plan to attend this gathering."

Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications - On Demand Detail

"City Cable 16 Programming Schedule

On-Demand Video is presented in Microsoft Media Player Format*.

Back To Channel 16 On Demand

Mayor's Weekly Press Briefing February 23, 2005 - 60 minutes "

Click on the small "watchOnDemand" logo on the right side of your screen. You will see and hear the press conference with Mayor Anthony Williams introducing the Black Patriots Memorial Project team.

Occaneechi signed a Treaty of Peace

"John Lawson, who visited the Occaneechi in 1701, gives us what is probably our latest, best known view of how the Occaneechi were living prior to their incorporation with the Saponi. Coupling Lawson's (Lefler 1967) written account with the information gained by recent excavations at Occaneechi Town by the Research Laboratories of Anthropology (Dickens et al. 1987; Ward and Davis 1988), it is possible to gain a fairly clear picture of a society undergoing rapid change, and yet endeavoring to maintain some semblance of a traditional lifestyle. In a period of time when small fragmented groups across the Piedmont were banding together for mutual assistance and protection, the merging of families and small tribes at Occaneechi Town would not have been unusual.

Occaneechi Town was almost completely abandoned by 1713, when the Occaneechi signed a Treaty of Peace with the Virginia colonial government at Williamsburg. At that point, it is indicated from reading the document that the Occaneechi, Stuckanok, and Tottero, although signing the treaty separately, were dominated by the Saponi. At least, the whites seemed to regard them all as Saponi. Governor Spotswood of Virginia would later refer to the Fort Christanna Indians as all going under the name of Saponi. There are very few references to the Occaneechi as a distinct tribe after the settlement at Fort Christanna, which operated from 1714 to 1717.

After the Indians were settled on the Meherrin River near present-day Lawrenceville, Virginia, a school and minister were provided for their instruction, along with a small company of rangers who were to guard the eastern colonists from attacks by western tribes such as the Cherokee. Once they were 'civilized' by the influences of Christianity and the English language, the Saponi were no doubt expected to assist in this duty. The fort also served as a t"

Occaneechi oreserving the old ways

Occaneechi Town

North Carolina Collection-Native Americans in North Carolina - Occaneechi

Racial designations changed in the 1880 Hancock Co., TN Mortality Schedule

Racial designations changed in the 1880 Hancock Co., TN Mortality Schedule: "Posted by: kevin mullins (ID *****0358)Date: March 10, 2005 at 15:03:09
of 15452


I was going through the 1880 Hancock Co mortality schedule earlier this week, and found something interesting. The racial designation for a few individuals (with familier names)had been written over and changed from the original enumerators' list. I copied the names as best I could, but the microfilm was very hard to read. The write-overs were very obvious though, looks like they may have been written with a pencil or something, as the lines are dark and thick. Here are the individuals, with info copied as best as I could read it;

1880 Hancock Co., TN Mortality Schedule

Page #1, Supervisor's Dist. #1, Enumeration Dist. #88 William Allen, enumerator:

47. William WINKLER, 1 yr old, race changed from 'mu' (mulatto) to 'B' (black), died Nov 1879, Bold Hives?"

William Loren Katz: Black Indians/Black Pioneers

"John Brown at 200: A White Role Model

By William Loren Katz [2001]

This year marks the bicentennial of John Brown, born in 1800, and he was executed by the state of Virginia 141 years ago, on December 2, 1859. This year a PBS documentary film continued an effort that began even before his execution to sully his reputation. Why? He was a white man who gave his life fighting slavery but he did so before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He was a premature 'emancipationist.' However, two years after John Brown's death Union soldiers marched into the South singing of the man -- 'his truth goes marching on.' In the year 2000 PBS film finds no truths about Brown worth repeating. The documentary begins with a long, slow scene showing Brown being led to the gallows and ends with a long slow scene showing him being led to the gallows. This could seem like a warning to similarly inclined white people, and the public deserves better.
Brown was a devout Christian who saw slavery as violence and whose favorite Biblical quote was 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.' He swore his entire family to the anti-slavery struggle; led armed bands that rescued enslaved people, and was an active agent of the underground railroad. In 1856 Brown fought slaveholders' fire with rifle fire in the Kansas Civil War. He was not a man to be trifled with. When President James Buchanan offered a $250 reward for Brown's capture, he offered $2.50 for Buchanan's. "


John Brown

Muslim Legacy in Early Americas - W. Africans, Moors and Amerindians

"MUSLIM LEGACY IN EARLY AMERICAS
West Africans, Moors and Amerindians
Jose V. Pimienta-Bey"

The presence of the naja among the dineh (a.k.a. "Navjo") is intriguing given the other evidence of Islamic contacts with the early American west. The naja is a crescent moon symbol found among the dineh that is used in such things as decoration and jewelry. While it is indeed possible that the symbol was indigenous to the dineh, a number of Smithsonian scholars apparently think that the symbol: "spread from Moslem North Africa to Spain, then to Mexico, then to the Navajo" (The Native Americans (1991) edited by Colin Taylor). Although the inference of the Smithsonian published text seems to be that the Spaniards brought the naja, it seems very odd to me that the crucifix-centered Catholic Spaniards would introduce such a symbol. After all, the customarily dogmatic Catholic Spaniards would have been introducing a religious symbol which represented the spiritual motif of their nemesis. If it was brought from Spain, I would argue that it probably came via expelled Moorish Muslims or subjugated "Moriscos." "Morisco" was the term used by Catholic officials to designate Moors (Moros) who were allowed to re main in Catholic dominions. It is essentially pejorative.

RootsWeb: Melungeon-L Redbone Gathering

"From: 'Winkler, Wayne'
Subject: Redbone Gathering
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:47:09 -0500

I'm passing on the following invitation from the Redbone Heritage
Foundation.

Wayne



I would like to take this opportunity to invite the Melungeons to attend
the Redbone Heritage Foundation Conference June 23-26, 2005 in
Alexandria, Louisiana. Please contact me for more information.

Catherine Russell Davidson,

Treasurer/Registrar

Redbone Heritage Foundation:

Katydid401@cox.net"

Resources:
Redbones of Louisiana

Cherry Winche Country: History of the Redbones

RootsWeb: Melungeon-L Fetterman's "The Mystery of Newman's Ridge"

RootsWeb: Melungeon-L Fetterman's "The Mystery of Newman's Ridge": "Melungeon-L Archives

From: 'Connie Hoskins'
Subject: Fetterman's 'The Mystery of Newman's Ridge'
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:14:14 -0500

Please excuse if this article has been previously posted. I've heard of it, but haven't read it until now. If it has been posted, maybe it's been a while and will be fresh reading for most people. He's certainly gentler w/ the Melungeons than he was w/ the people of Stinking Creek in Knox Co KY.

Regards, Connie

'The Mystery of Newman's Ridge', by John Fetterman, from Life magazine June 26, 1970

Mr. Fetterman is a journalist and author specializing in Appalachia.

When the cold season comes, the wind bites and howls along Newman's Ridge in east Tennessee, nudging the snow across silent, ancient graveyards and against sturdy cabins fashioned from monstrous hand-hewn poplar logs. Only the wind knows the origin of the dark-complexioned and handsome people who settled on the ridge, some say hundreds of years before Columbus found the New World, and the wind will not tell."

Lest We Forget: The Melungeons of Newman's Ridge

Blacks and the American Revolution

"Blacks and The American Revolution

The American Revolution was not only the colonies fight to gain independence but the African-Americans largest slave revolt. There was an inherent contradiction in the whites wanting to gain liberation from England while enslaving blacks at the same time. This contradiction has its roots in the white concept of liberation as opposed to that of the blacks. To white Americans the war meant freedom and liberty in a political-economical sense rather than in the sense of personal bondage the blacks suffered from.

The white fight for freedom gave the blacks the perfect opportunity to cast their own bid for freedom. They increased the number of freedom suits and petitions to the state legislatures. Individual slaves could bring up their own freedom suits but in order to free many slaves at once they had to get together and form a petition. The inconsistency between the ideals of the Revolution and the institution of slavery fueled the black movement for freedom."


George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War

The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America

'The Drifters' Focuses on the Melungeon Boat People

The Drifters' Focuses on the Melungeon Boat People


First Novel to Feature Melungeon Shantyboat People Is Published


(BookCatcher.com) 3/9/05 -- Harriett Holmes was 15 and pregnant when in 1837 she boarded a Kentucky shantyboat that would become her home for the next decade. Life was difficult for many people during the 1800s, but it was especially so for Harriett�s family, because they were Melungeons, a mixed race with low social status.
Racial discrimination is one of the key themes of The Drifters, a new book that follows Harriett and her family through the Trail of Tears, the Civil War and Texas cattle drives. Redemption is another theme. Can a slave help Harriett and her family find solace, redemption and grace through God?

The Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shantyboat People is the first novel to feature the Melungeon shantyboat people, a nearly forgotten ethnic group in American history. Tonya Holmes Shook of Hastings, Oklahoma, spent eighteen years researching and writing the book."

Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shanty Boat People

giant skeletons with double rows of teeth

Flavius Josephus wrote in the 2nd century, 'There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenences so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight.....the bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike any creditable relations to other men.'

The Emmin, were one of the tribes of Giants in the Bible, which translates, 'the dreadful ones'The Babylonian Talmud states that some of the giants in the Biblical lands, had a double row of teeth.The Fomorians were legendary race of giant sea traders who inhabited Ireland in its early histroy. Some were documented as having double rows of teeth."

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America

Indian Migrations, as Evidenced by Language: Comprising the Huron-Cherokee Stock: The Dakota Stock: The Algonkins: The Chahta-Muskoki Stock: The Moundbuilders: The Lberians

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America

A History of Turks in America

"In the 16th century, the size and power of the Ottoman Empire reached its peak. Since the conquest of Istanbul by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453, the Ottomans had engaged in active expansion, both in land and on the sea. Seeking the legitimization and prestige associated with guarding the Islamic Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, the Ottomans marched southward and eastward towards Arabia and Persia. But the conquest of Istanbul had opened the door to Europe, so the Ottomans also advanced westwards towards the Balkans. With the establishment of its Navy in the late 1400s, the Ottomans soon came in conflict with the seafaring Italian city states. By the beginning of the 1500s, however, the Ottomans had emerged as the dominant power in the Eastern Mediterranean. These successes in turn paved the way for Ottoman seamen to enter the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, thereby threatening the European trade routes to the East, and bringing the Ottomans into conflict with the Portuguese.

In the face of such expansion, European states endeavored to form alliances that would balance the power against the Ottomans. However, even the Pope's calls for holy war against the Turks in response to the conquest of Istanbul was not sufficient to overcome the individual political and economic interests of the European states and create a unified counter-force. Rather, European states struggled independently against the Ottomans, with the Hapsburgs fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans, and the Portuguese and Venetians fighting the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. For the Europeans, the main concern was commercial, and this quest for alternate trade routes to India as well as new trading partners sparked the 'Voyages of Discovery' that led to the Portuguese successfully discovering a way around the Cape of Good Hope, and Christopher Columbus discovering America in 1492"

From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish-American Dialogue

Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery

(INDIAN) Tall Armenian Tale: The Other Side of the Falsified Genocide

"Navajo and Apache DNA matched those of Tuvans"


A leading Russian geneticist claims he has taken a giant step toward identifying the precise origin of native Americans, based on his genetic studies of the Tuvan Turkish people in Siberia. Ilya Zakharov, deputy director of Moscow's Vavlov Institute Of General Genetics, says an expedition he led last year proved a DNA link between American Indians and the Ak-Dovurak region 2,100 miles southeast of Moscow. Tuva today is one of Russia's poorest and most mysterious regions, with ancient cultural traditions that include shamanism. The area, bridging Siberia's huge Taiga Forest and the steppes. or plains, lies north of Mongolia. The Tuvans are mainly Turkic-speaking nomadic pastoralists who herd camels, yaks, sheep, goats, and reindeer. Tuva formed part of the Chinese empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. Zakharov says his team was able to greatly narrow the focus with hair samples taken from about 430 Tuvans. DNA data from the hair roots was analyzed and then compared with that of Eskimos and Amerindian people, including the Navajo and Apache. Amerindian DNA makeup exactly matched the Tuvans ? by 72 percent of one group of 30 samples and 69 percent of another group of 300.

Ahmet Toprak
Turkish Radio Hour

As reported in the December 15, 1998 issue of The Turkish Times"



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

Cherokee Nation of Mexico History

"History of the Nacion Cherokee de Mexico
(Cherokee Nation of Mexico)"

Osiyo. Our grandfathers’ most ancient stories tell us that we Cherokees were in exodus and walked a great distance when we came to the ocean. With faith we built rafts and crossed the ocean, coming from the East to the West and established a life for ourselves in this new land of the Americas. About 1000 B.C., a people from a rubber tree forest invaded Eastern Mexico. The indigenous Mexicans called these newcomers the Olmec. They were a people completely obsessed with magic; we avoided them by traveling to the North.


The Olmecs: America's First Civilization

Calvin Beale's 1972 article "An Overview of the Phenomenon of Mixed Racial Isolates in the Unites States"

An Overview of the Phenomenon of Mixed Racial Isolates in the Unites States

by Calvin L. Beale

American Anthropologist 74 (1972): 704-710 1

Mention is made of the decreasing proportion of endogamous marriages in recent times. The essentially rural nature of these racial isolates is pointed out, and the general societal trend of rural depopulation is stated to be affecting their size and continued existence. A suggested list of research needs is offered.

In about 1890, a young Tennessee woman asked a state legislator, “Please tell me what is a Melungeon?” “A Melungeon,” said he, “isn’t a nigger, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a White man. God only knows what he is. I should call him a Democrat, only he always votes the Republican ticket” (Dromgoole 18901: 473).

Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement

Lincoln Memorial 

TIP #181- KENTUCKY TURNPIKES and FERRIES

"THE KENTUCKY TURNPIKE:

This turnpike connected Louisville in Jefferson Co to Elizabethtown in
Hardin county. It was the first section of a north-south road which ran
from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The turnpike was begun in
Bullitt County on 25 July 1954 and opened 1 August 1956. Later, an
extension was added from Watteson Expressway in Louisville to the Eastern
Parkway."

The Legend of a Mountain Girl and Her Baby by Helen Campbell

I've listened to discussions, watched the History Channel on television and read books that claim the sixteenth president of the United States of America; Abraham Lincoln was of Melungeon ancestry. It is generally accepted by most Melungeons researchers that Lincoln's Melungeon ancestry comes through the linage of his mother, Nancy Hanks. He inherited a dark complexion, course, black hair, and grey eyes all of which is consistent with the physical features of the Melungeons. Judging from a picture of Nancy Hanks Lincoln (drawn by Lloyd Ostendorf), Lincoln does resemble his mother. Abraham Lincoln also inherited color blindness. One day he told his mother that he could not see things like other people.


Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's Ancestry

Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65

Genealogy of the Hanks and allied families

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declaring the end to slavery