Melungeon-L Archives

Archiver > Melungeon > 2007-03 > 1172759092


From: "Elizabeth Whitaker" <>
Subject: Re: [MELUNGEON] The Meluneons - According to Joanne
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 09:24:52 -0500
References: <022820071929.11411.45E5D8030005D6D200002C9322070208530104049A96960A9F@comcast.net><gjkdu21hrrec7huagivcgd2iph47neuj1m@4ax.com>
In-Reply-To: <gjkdu21hrrec7huagivcgd2iph47neuj1m@4ax.com>


My (so-far) one definite Melungeon connection is through descent from a
member of
the "Guineas" of West Virginia.

I don't see any evidence of African ancestry in the family pictures, but it
does look like there is Gypsy ancestry in this particular line as one
of the earlier members looks like he's from South India, the original
homeland
of the Gypsies. This ancestor was born in the late 1850s and died in the
early 1930s.
He was the owner of several stores over his lifetime and a posthumous
tribute (1936)
noted how well he got along with his (to use current terminology)
African-American
customers.

Back in '80, during my first period of residence in the D.C. area, for a
while, I worked with
some ladies who were D.C. natives and who had never been out of the Metro
area.
When a college student from India joined us, they believed that he was a
member of
their race: I don't remember that he ever convinced them that he was another
variety
of white.

Elizabeth Whitaker

now back in the D.C. area



On 3/1/07, Dennis Maggard <> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:29:07 +0000, Joanne wrote:
>
> >http://www.geocities.com/ourmelungeons/joannesmalungeons.html
>
> Interesting stuff, Joanne.
>
> As we all know -- and as some of your material illustrates -- there
> was a heavy price to be paid in those days for having black ancestry.
> And some people argue that the Melungeons claims of Portuguese
> ancestry was nothing but a cover story to hide black ancestry, wrongly
> implying that if they had black ancestry their claims of Portuguese
> ancestry must be false.
>
> Do you think the Melungeons of the early 19th century had no black
> ancestry? Or do you think they had both black and Portuguese ancestry
> and used the latter to help hide the former? Or do you think they had
> black ancestry but were unaware of it?
>
> Dennis
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> MELUNGEON Mailing List Archives:
>
> http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=melungeon
>
> http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Ethnic-Mixed/Melungeon.html
>
> http://tinyurl.com/9ev8a
>
> http://www.jgoins.com/
>
> For list problems contact Janet Crain at:
>
> -------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the
> quotes in the subject and the body of the message
>

This thread: