Links of Interest Expanded

Several new links of interest have been added recently. If it has been a while since you paid the "Links of Interest" portal a visit, you might want to take a look. The portal is in the sidebar immediately above MHS Blog Archives. Click on the link at the bottom of the list of links to return to the MHS Blog home page.

Descendants of Vardy Collins Redux

Descendants of Vardy Collins
Compiled by Kevin Mullins
Updated as of September, 2008

Generation No. 1

1. VARDY1 COLLINS was born 1764 in Grayson Co., VA, and died Bef. 1860 in Hancock Co, TN. He married PEGGY GIBSON. She was born Abt. 1773 in NC, and died Aft. 1850 in Hancock Co, TN.

Notes for VARDY COLLINS:

Vardy has been called the "patriarch of the Melungeons", and has been speculated to have been one of the first settlers in the Newmans Ridge/Blackwater area. But a check of the records indicates that Vardy may not have arrived in Hawkins/Hancock Co until ca 1810. There were other Collins and Gibsons in S.W. VA and E. TN earlier than 1810, but I'm not sure whether they were in the Newmans Ridge/Blackwater area. He was in Wilkes Co, NC in 1790, according to the census. He was listed in the Ashe Co, NC census in 1800, and in Hawkins Co, TN in 1810.

To read more: Click Here.

Before you do, however, Kevin has asked me to stress that as extensive as it is, his research is a work in progress and is always subject to change by further research, and that no research published on the web should be taken as authoritative in itself but rather as a pointer to the primary sources, which should always be consulted before reaching any conclusions.

That is good advice in regard to anything you see on the web, and especially in regard to Melungeons, about so much misinformation has been so widely distributed.

Old Thomas Collins of Flatt River

Written and Compiled by Jack Goins, MHS VP for Heritage

According to documented family research, old Thomas Collins Sr., born before 1710, was the father and/or grandfather of the historical Tennessee Melungeon Collins. At least one of Thomas Collins parents was probably full blood Saponi Indian. Collins family history handed down from father to son was, "The Collins were living in Virginia as Indians before they migrated to North Carolina, and they stole the name Collins from white settlers" ( Will Allen Dromgoole's 1890 interview with Calloway Collins, quoted in Melungeons And Other Pioneer Families.)

To read the story of Thomas Collins and his descendants: Click Here.

Will Allen Dromgoole

Tennessee author and poetess Will Allen Dromgoole played a pivotal role in Melungeon historiography thanks to four newspaper articles about Melungeons written by her in 1890 and 1891 and published in the Nashville Daily American and the Boston Arena. The accuracy of these accounts is debatable, to say the least, but for good or ill they constituted the first widespread reporting about the Melungeons and influenced later authors, making no study of the Melungeons complete without them.

To read about the life of Will Allen Dromgoole: Click Here.

To read the four articles:

• "The Melungeon Tree and Its Four Branches"
• “Land of The Malungeons”
• "The Malungeons"
• "A Strange People"

Click Here.

September 26, 1813

"Church sat in love. Brother Kilgore, Moderator. Then came forward Sister Kitchen and complained to the church against Susanna Stallard for saying she harbored them Melungins. Sister Sook said she was hurt with her for believing her child and not believing her, and she won't talk to her to get satisfaction, and both is "pigedish", one against the other. Sister Sook lays it down and the church forgives her. Then came forward Cox and relates to the church that he went to the Association and took the letter and they received the letter in fellowship. Dismissed."

Minutes of the Stony Creek Baptist Church
Fort Blackmore, Scott County VA

Discovered by MHS Vice-President for Heritage, Jack Goins, this is the earliest known written reference to Melungeons.

Calvin Beale Passes Away

Obituary by MHS President Wayne Winkler

Calvin Beale, who was one of first researchers to scientifically examine the phenomenon of Melungeons and other mixed ethnic populations, died on September 2 after a bout with colon cancer. He was 85 years old.

Calvin Lunsford Beale was born June 6, 1923, in Washington and was a graduate of the city's Wilson Teachers College. Fascinated by geography from childhood, he found a job in the map department of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, during World War II.

While working at the Census Bureau in the late 1940s, he did graduate work in the new field of demography at the University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin. He received a master's degree from Wisconsin for his life's work in 1981.

The "Los Angeles Times" reports, "His most renowned discovery came in the late 1960s, when he noticed that people were beginning to trickle back to the countryside after 150 years of steady migration to cities. When he published evidence of what became known as the "population turnaround," academics scoffed. "No one believed him when he first started talking about it," said USDA colleague John Cromartie, "but later surveys bore him out."

For more than five decades, he continued to travel to distant outposts in all 50 states to take the measure of the people who live there. Of the nation's 3,141 counties, he visited almost 2,500. In each one, he took a picture of the county courthouse, interviewed local residents and recorded meticulous notes. Many of his photographs can be found on a USDA website.

To view them: Click Here.

Beale worked for the U. S. Census Bureau in the late 1940s in preparation for the 1950 census. Beale and at least one other colleague had noticed that many of the families identified in William Gilbert's work on remnant Indian tribes had been classified inconsistently from census to census. After the census was taken, Beale had access to every portfolio of census returns and, using the family names noted by Gilbert, began examining how these families were classified ethnically.

After the 1950 census, Beale went to work for the U. S. Department of Agriculture but continued to study Melungeons and mixed-ethnic populations on his own. In 1957 he published an article entitled "American Triracial Isolates: Their Status and Pertinence to Genetic Research." The magazine was "Eugenics Quarterly," and in 2003 Beale told me, "I wish that I didn't have to say it was in 'Eugenics Quarterly' - not because 'Eugenics Quarterly' was a bad journal. It was as very reputable journal...But 'eugenics' had become a bad word, particularly after World War Two, and it wasn't more than a couple more years before the journal took a different name."

I met Calvin Beale at a Melungeon gathering in 2003. My prepared talk was on the work of William Gilbert, Edward Price, and Calvin Beale, whom I considered the pioneers in research on multi-ethnic populations. A couple of hours before my presentation, someone told me Calvin Beale was in the audience. I went to meet him and his first words to me were, "I'll bet you thought I was dead by now." Needless to say, I was very pleased that I had written complimentary things about his work and we stayed in touch over the years.

To see Calvin Beale with Wayne Winkler in 2004: Click Here.

Beale coined the term "triracial isolates" as a synoptic of all the multi-ethnic groups. "And I limited myself only to those who had, either by self-identity or local ascription, three races - whether or not any individuals in [those groups] were necessarily of tri-racial descent." Beale believed that these groups "seem to have formed through miscegenation between Indians, whites, and Negroes - slave or free - in the Colonial and early Federal periods."

In 2004, Beale told a Melungeon gathering, "In July of 1969, I read a small item in a newspaper about the Melungeons opening an outdoor drama in Sneedville. It so happened that I had some business in Oak Ridge at this time. So the day after I finished that, I drove up to Sneedville, found the amphitheatre, and got a ticket. I also asked whether there was anyone in town who might be willing to show me around some. Claude Collins was mentioned. So I contacted him and he was gracious enough to take me for a drive up on Newman's Ridge, to the Vardy School, and up Snake hollow. I also asked about a place to stay overnight and was able to get one of the two motel rooms above the beauty parlor.

"That night, before the play, there was a lobby at the amphitheatre with craft items on sale. I wanted to take home some small souvenirs and gifts and stood contemplating some homemade soaps. I must have done so for more than just a moment. Presently, I heard a voice from somewhere in back and I think somewhat above me say, "Mr. Beale, are you planning on taking a bath?" It was Claude Collins.

"There was a big audience for the play. I remember having a rather so-so reaction to the first act that pictured the Melungeons' rather prosperous early period in the area, although they were regarded as people whose origin was unknown. But the second act, set much later and with its star-crossed love story between a Melungeon girl and the son of a prominent businessman who covets Melungeon land, was very skilfully done, and by the end there were hardly any dry eyes in the house, my own included.

"That trip was nearly the last research excursion that I took relating to the triracial populations, as my interests seemed to turn to other things. Life was rapidly changing for the groups, as it was for the country in general. The Civil Rights era had ended the separate school systems many groups had that had both limited and sustained their status. It was the time of television and much better roads, and a greatly diminished role for farm work. By '69, there were large numbers of people from every group who had dispersed to the cities to work. The Melungeons, in effect, had a big coming-out party and said, 'Yes, we're Melungeons. So what?'"

From the Los Angeles Times: What may be even more remarkable is that Beale never charged his trips to a government expense account. He paid for everything -- airline tickets, car rentals and hotels -- out of his own pocket. "The taxpayers got their money's worth from Calvin, and then some," said David L. Brown, a former colleague who now teaches at Cornell University. Beale, who never married, lived in Washington his entire life -- and had no desire to live anywhere else. He followed baseball closely and was his office's resident movie expert, but mostly he devoted his life to his work, studying maps, the ever-changing numbers on census reports and the lives those numbers represented. In the words of his nephew, Richard Beale, "He's the only person I've ever known who, on his deathbed, said he should have spent more time at the office.'"

To read the New York Times' obituary in its entirety: Click Here.

Myth Making Amid the Mountains

Just as many myths about the Melungeons have been created, told and retold by amateurs, myths about Appalachia have been created, told and retold by professionals. This paper examines some of these academic myths and their ramifications:

Appalachian Culture and Economic Development

Ronald L. Lewis
West Virginia University
Dwight B. Billings
University of Kentucky

Journal of Appalachian Studies 1997;3(1):43–69

Abstract: For almost as long as commentators, reformers, and policy makers have worried about how to improve income, living conditions, and human welfare in the southern mountain region of the United States, a significant relationship is assumed to exist between the culture of those who live in Appalachia and the prospects for the region's economic development. Indeed, assumptions about the distinctiveness of Appalachian culture influence the very presumption that Appalachia is in fact a discrete region with a distinctive culture even though most Americans would scoff at the notion of a Rocky Mountain culture or an Adirondac culture.

A central theme in much of the vast popular and scholarly literature about Appalachia contends that deficiencies in mountain culture have contributed to, or at least reinforced, economic backwardness and poverty. Although the myth which links cultural deficiency and economic underdevelopment in Appalachia has been evolving for a century, a large body of literature written by regional scholars during the past twenty-five years, along with a reappraisal of earlier studies, demonstrates a far more complex relationship between Appalachian culture and economic development past and present than previously imagined.

In this paper we will first examine a set of once powerful beliefs about Appalachian culture and its presumed impact on economic development, and then assess existing evidence supporting those interpretations. The assumptions and beliefs include such concepts as isolationism, homogeneity, familism, and fundamentalism. These and a variety of corollary concepts grew out of a popular mythology which came to be accepted and then reified by professionals whose works were influential during the 1960s and 1970s and still influence theory and policy analysis today. The validity of these beliefs, many of which eventually calcified into stereotypes, were challenged during the period of social activism which has flourished throughout Appalachia since the 1970s. The intellectual ferment among activists, scholars, educators, writers, and artists throughout the region during this period has significantly deepened our understanding of the great diversity in Appalachia's geography, history, cultural resources, forms of social and political participation, and its relationship with the national and global markets.

This paper examines how this new knowledge of Appalachian history and culture either modifies or rejects earlier models and perspectives on the relationship between culture and economic development in Appalachia, and will postulate what the newer approaches imply for future economic development strategies and policy-making.

To read the entire paper: Click Here. (Adobe Acrobat or other PDF reader required.)

Census and Tax Records Online

The site linked to below contains a well organized and easily navigated hierarchy of thousands of links to federal, state and county census, tax and other records available online, organized by state and county. The collection is by no means exhaustive and will not necessarily take you to the best online resource available, but it is extensive, covers Canada as well as the United States, and is well worth exploring.

To visit: Click Here.

2008 Sneedville Fall Festival

32nd Annual “Welcome Home” Fall Festival
Sneedville, Tennessee
11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Saturday Oct. 4th
11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sunday Oct. 5th
Concert Saturday Night Oct. 4th at 7:00 p.m.
Tractor Parade Sat. Oct. 4th at 11:00 downtown
with Bill Landry as Grand Marshal.
Tractor Show and display directly after parade.
Beauty Pageant for Harvest Queen Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
Other pageants held on Saturday, times to be announced.
Bill Landry Award Presentation Sat. Oct. 4th at noon.
Farmers Market with produce to be sold from local farmers
This year the festival is honoring the farmers, and heritage
of the people of Hancock County.
Lots of good music, good food and local craftspeople
displaying and demonstrating their work.
There will be gasohol, molasses making,
woodworking, applebutter stirs, and more.
There will also be a kids corner for crafts.
For more information call 423-733-4341
Don’t miss the fun!!

Fall Festival program details courtesy of Becky Nelson, MHS Secretary/Treasurer. The MHS will be represented at the festival by various members, with a booth open both days.

Topographic Map of Newmans Ridge

Click on Map to Enlarge
Map Courtesy of the US Geological Survey

The Mystery of Newman's Ridge

Life Magazine June 26, 1970 By John Fetterman A Journalist and Author Specializing in Appalachia.

This article is presented not for its veracity but to show how the Melungeon story was presented to the nation in a mainstream periodical nearly 40 years ago.

To read the article: Click Here.

The Black and White World of Walter Plecker

By Warren Fiske
Published in Style Weekly
September 22, 2004

This link, the last in the current series of three MHS Blog entries dealing with Dr. Walter Plecker, Registrar of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946, is to an article reviewing the life, character and motivations of this truly evil man.

To read the article: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Plecker Letters Pertaining to Melungeons

This is the second of a three-part series on the infamous Dr. Walter Plecker, Registrar of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946. During the course of his documentary war on Virginia's Indians and on those whites he deemed not white enough to satisfy his racist ideals, the Melungeons and those of Melungeon descent did not escape his malevolent notice. The link below presents a number of his letters touching on the subject, including his list of "mongrel" surnames. Of particular interest, however, is his exchange of letters with the Tennessee State Archivist and Librarian specifically asking about the Melungeons and their origins. Note that he did not like the answer he received and made it clear he would ignore it.

To read Plecker's letters: Click Here.

Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924

This begins a three-part series on the infamous Dr. Walter Plecker, Registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946, who for decades conducted a racial inquisition in Virginia which resulted in all Virginia residents previously classified as being Indian and some previously classified as being white being reclassified, against their will, as "colored." Plecker's reign of documentary terror, which brought untold anguish and suffering to its victims, was buttressed and expanded by passage of the equally infamous Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, an act largely inspired by Pecker himself, the full text of which follows below.

The next article in the series will deal with Plecker's efforts to ferret out and reclassify as "colored" Melungeon families in Virginia (along with many other families he regarded as "passing for white") and include his notorious list of "mongrel" surnames. For now it is worth mentioning that the activities of Dr. Plecker and the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924 were cited at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in defense of Nazi racial laws and activities.

The Virginia Racial Integrity Act was declared unconstitutional in 1967 by the U.S. Supreme Court in an unanimous decision, Loving v. Virginia, and was formally repealed by the Virginia legislature in 1975.

Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924.
An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That the State Registrar of Vital Statistics may as soon as practicable after the taking effect of this act, prepare a form whereon the racial composition of any individual, as Caucasian, negro, Mongolian, American Indian, Asiatic Indian, Malay, or any mixture thereof, or any other non-Caucasic strains, and if there be any mixture, then the racial composition of the parents and other ancestors, in so far as ascertainable, so as to show in what generation such mixture occurred, may be certified by such individual, which form shall be known as a registration certificate. The State Registrar may supply to each local registrar a sufficient number of such forms for the purpose of this act; each local registrar may personally or by deputy, as soon as possible after receiving said forms, have made thereon in duplicate a certificate of the racial composition as aforesaid, of each person resident in his district, who so desires, born before June fourteenth, nineteen hundred and twelve, which certificate shall be made over the signature of said person, or in the case of children under fourteen years of age, over the signature of a parent, guardian, or other person standing in loco parentis. One of said certificates for each person thus registering in every district shall be forwarded to the State Registrar for his files; the other shall be kept on file by the local registrar.

Every local registrar may, as soon as practicable, have such registration certificate made by or for each person in his district who so desires, born before June fourteen, nineteen hundred and twelve, for whom he has not on file a registration certificate, or a birth certificate.

2. It shall be a felony for any person wilfully or knowingly to make a registration certificate false as to color or race. The wilful making of a false registration or birth certificate shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for one year.

3. For each registration certificate properly made and returned to the State Registrar, the local registrar returning the same shall be entitled to a fee of twenty-five cents, to be paid by the registrant. Application for registration and for transcript may be made direct to the State Registrar, who may retain the fee for expenses of his office.

4. No marriage license shall be granted until the clerk or deputy clerk has reasonable assurance that the statements as to color of both man and woman are correct.

If there is reasonable cause to disbelieve that applicants are of pure white race, when that fact is stated, the clerk or deputy clerk shall withhold the granting of the license until satisfactory proof is produced that both applicants are "white persons" as provided for in this act.

The clerk or deputy clerk shall use the same care to assure himself that both applicants are colored, when that fact is claimed.

5. It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this act, the term "white person" shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding the intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this act.

6. For carrying out the purposes of this act and to provide the necessary clerical assistance, postage and other expenses of the State Registrar of Vital Statistics, twenty per cent of the fees received by local registrars under this act shall be paid to the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, which may be expended by the said bureau for the purposes of this act.

7. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are, to the extent of such inconsistency, hereby repealed.

1830 Hawkins County Census

Hawkins County, TN Census and Tax Records Online

Prior to the creation of Hancock County in 1848, Newsmans Ridge and vicinity was part of Hawkins County, with many of the Melungeon core families listed in its census and tax records. This web site contains a number of these early records transcribed in detail, including the often cited 1830 census, complete with a surname index.

To view: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Cumberland Gap History

The Cumberland Gap

A rather detailed history of the Cumberland Gap, and of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, written by William W. Luckett and originally published the Tennessee Historical Quarterly in December, 1964 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4), is available online at the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park web site.

To view: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Hancock County, TN Web Site

To visit the Hancock County, TN web site: Click Here.

While there, be sure to click on the "Events" button at the bottom of the home page and learn all about the annual Fall Festival in Sneedville, being held this year on October 4th and 5th. If you attend, be sure to visit the MHS booth.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Melungeon Court Cases

Presentation by Jack Goins
June 10, 2006 at Kingsport, TN

This fascinating and very entertaining historical presentation, complete with many pictures, details 19th century court cases involving Melungeons, cases often cited in the Melungeon studies literature, based on a careful examination of the actual court records, many of them only brought to light in recent years, which are among the most valuable primary Melungeon research sources available. These cases provide important insights into the life, history and social standing of 19th century Melungeons.

Highly recommended.

To read the presentation: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Melungeon Related Book Wins Award

Radio-TV prof's book gets literary award

BY SIUC UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Friday, September 12, 2008 5:22 AM CDT

CARBONDALE -- A book by Jacob J. Podber that offers a unique look at the arrival and impact of radio, television and the Internet on rural Appalachia is receiving literary honors.

“The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community,” recently received the 2008 Ray and Pat Browne Literary Book Award for the Best Focused Study in Popular and American Culture. The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association presented the award.

Podber is an associate professor in Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Department of Radio-Television. Podber began his work while a doctoral student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, which is in Appalachian Ohio. Mercer University Press released the book in fall 2007.

“It’s a great honor to have my book chosen for the best book award by such a diverse organization that covers such a wide array of fields and disciplines,” Podber said.

Podber earned a doctorate of philosophy in mass communications from Ohio University, a master’s degree in film from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Florida.

Descendants of Vardy Collins

Descendants of Vardy Collins
Compiled By Kevin Mullins

A definitive listing of the descendants of Melungeon "patriarch" Vardy Collins through the 19th century and into 20th century.

To view this article: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Melungeon Timeline

A Melungeon Timeline
by Penny Ferguson, MHS VP for Research

An extensive timeline spanning the early 16th century to the late 20th century of people, events and publications pertinent to Melungeon research.

To view the timeline: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Book Review: Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree

Is it Worth Reading?
Book Review by Janet Crain

(Republished from the Fall, 2008 MHS Newsletter)

Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree
The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors

by Lisa Alther
Arcade Publishing (April 11, 2007)

Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors is an interesting narrative of a middle aged woman's search for identity, recounted in a wry, offhand manner with some occasional digressions into the history of the Appalachian region. At times, the digressions involve the author's personal opinions about lifestyle choices and controversial subjects and don't really add to the narrative. If the stated purpose of this book is the search for her Melungeon ancestors, the stories about college, New York and Paris and monsters in Lake Champion don't seem necessary to recount and explain this journey.

In fact, this book could have stood alone as a rather entertaining account of the genealogy research experiences of a person trying to find her roots. Throwing in information (and misinformation) about the historical Melungeon people of East Tennessee and nearby regions was asking too much and was not delivered.

Much of this can be explained by the author's reliance on the popular "Internet" version of the Melungeons which came into being concurrently with a pop culture book by Brent Kennedy. The book, The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People : An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America, while probably an honest endeavor, was responsible for thousands upon thousands of readers becoming convinced that they were of Melungeon descent. After all, didn't they have ancestors from the region with one or more of the surnames purported to be Melungeon? This ever expanding list grew to well over one hundred surnames.

And now Kinfolks is being used as a textbook. I expect there will be many more "Melungeons" finding their identity. And I wonder how far into the future the ripple effect from this misrepresentation will extend. The Melungeon people were a small group that lived in a specific region of America. They were subjected to prejudice and hardships and endured many difficulties. They deserve to have their true story told. But, regrettably, this is not a book that does so.

Slideshow Added to MHS Blog

A slideshow has been added to the MHS Blog sidebar. It currently has twelve pictures but more will be added as they are collected, and pictures may be periodically rotated in and out of it, so it will be changing and expanding over time.

If you move your mouse cursor over the slideshow, a small control panel appears which will let you stop the slideshow and move it backwards and forwards, and clicking on the current picture, with or without the control panel showing, will open the full-sized picture in a separate browser window or tab.

Digital Resources

There are many collections of digitized images, texts and other resources on the web but finding the right one can be very difficult. Here are two "collections of collections" which you may find useful:

OAIster

OAIster is a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service whose goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone.

Digital Libraries

Digital Libraries is a collection of links to digital libraries, organized by state, provided by the University of Arizona. ("Kentuckiana Digital Library" is particularly recommended!)

To visit OAIster: Click Here.
To visit Digital Libraries: Click Here.

Note: These links will take you outside this blog. I would recommend opening them in a separate window or tab (if your browser supports tabbed browsing), which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Edward T. Price

Dr. Edward T. Price, Professor of Geography Emeritus at the University of Oregon, published several papers in the 1950's touching on Melungeons. The most well-known of these is:

A Geographic Analysis of White-Indian-Negro Racial Mixtures in Eastern United States, Annals, Association of American Geographers, 43:138-155, 1953.

To read this paper: Click Here.

To view the paper, this site requires that your browser have both JavaScript and Adobe Flash Player installed and enabled, and it requires several minutes to load if you are connected to the net by modem. However, it is the one place online I have been able to find the paper with its accompanying maps intact.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Historical Maps

Reference Map of the Southern Colonies, 1607-1760

Historical Atlas by William R. Sheppard, 1923
(Click on Map to Enlarge)

Just one map among thousands of historical maps available online in the Perry-Castenada Library map collection at the University of Texas.

To visit the US historical maps section of the collection: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

The Melungeons Revisited

The Melungeons Revisited
By Richard A. Pence

This ten year old article touching on Brent Kennedy's book and the state of Melungeon studies at the time is still quite relevant today. Unfortunately. Of special note are the citations toward the end of Dr. Virginia DeMarce's original, highly respected Melungeon genealogical publications.

To read the article: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

One More Mountain To Cross

One More Mountain To Cross....
An historical account of a Collins family journey, and the footsteps of their descendants.
By Frankie Blackburn with Brenda Collins Dillon, Joyce Lea Kollenberg, Cynthia Jane Steeley, & John Trulinger

To read this overview of the Collins family story: Click Here.

Note: This link will take you outside this blog and Blogspot. I would recommend opening it in a separate window or tab, if your browser supports tabbed browsing, which you browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Note Also: The article is labeled part one and has at its end what purports to be a link to part two; however, the link is inoperative and the second part apparently no longer exists.

Collins Timeline, 1742-1810

1742-1810 TIMELINE for COLLINS in NC, TN, VA and KY
Compiled by Brenda Collins Dillon and Frankie Blackburn

To view the timeline: Click Here.

Life in Possum Holler

Life in Possum Holler
A Blog By
Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D.
Saline County, Arkansas

Six articles in this blog are labeled "Melungeon" but a search for the word Melungeon turns up seven more. Not that articles with the word Melungeon in them are the only ones of interest, but this is precisely why I am not a big fan of using Blogspot labels when a perfectly good blog search engine is provided.

To view Dr. Billingsley's blog: Click Here.

Particularly recommended is the January 10, 2005 article entitled "Review Essay: Melungeons" which reviews MHS president Wayne Winkler's 2004 book Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia. This article is not labeled "Melungeon" but must be found through a search of the blog or by going into the blog's archives.

To go directly to this article: Click Here.

Note: These links will take you outside this blog. I would recommend opening them in a separate window or tab (if your browser supports tabbed browsing), which your browser may do in any event, depending on the browser you are using and how it is configured; otherwise, use your browser's back-button to return.

Buck Gibson

Shepard “Old Buck” Gibson
1765 - 1842
By Loaetta Reddington and Jack Goins

To read the article: Click Here.

Calvin Beale

Noted Melungeon researcher and eminent USDA Economic Research Service demographer Calvin Beale, author of the landmark 1957 paper, American Triracial Isolates: Their Status and Pertinence to Genetic Research, moved to an assisted living facility this spring because of a recurrence of cancer. His colleague Catherine Greene visited recently, and they talked about Melungeon research, He really enjoyed his visits at the biennial Melungeon gatherings, and very much appreciated the Lifetime Achievement Award presented to him at the 2004 gathering.

In case anyone would like to send a note, his address is:

Calvin Beale
Sunrise on Connecticut Ave., Room 403
5111 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, DC 20008