Ever hear of the Melungeons?

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Meerkat

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Columbus was the first human to...wait, make that first European....I mean second....whoa, third? fourth? fifth? Okay, here we go: "Columbus was brave (and we should still have his day off work)."
 

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Well...I've known of two with that decent..they are unusually pretty people! Very dark hair and unique beautiful eyes...
 

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GPatten

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kimmi 57 said:
Well...I've known of two with that decent..they are unusually pretty people! Very dark hair and unique beautiful eyes...

That’s true, but not accurate.
It seams like they have been beautiful in some regions; in some time, at some place, but reading that link I placed there; I think it is safe to say they are different.

I’m still trying to read everything from that link and reach out for more. There has to be a story of fiction from this little known piece of history.
 

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GPatten said:
That’s true, but not accurate.
It seams like they have been beautiful in some regions; in some time, at some place, but reading that link I placed there; I think it is safe to say they are different.

I’m still trying to read everything from that link and reach out for more. There has to be a story of fiction from this little known piece of history.

This is very interesting gp, thanks for sharing!
 

Eeman

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Interesting topic, indeed. Here is a book I came across a while back:

http://www.soundvision.com/Shop/pview.asp?Item=421-047

421-047.jpg
 

Jamesaritchie

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Yes, much of my family is from the area, so I have heard of Melungeons, but most of what you read about them is pure nonselnse. Darned few "real" Melungeons will admit to the descent, and those few who do really have no clue what their descent really is. Anyone who claims to have the answers is wrong, and probably 90% of what's written about them is complete fantasy, written without any basis in fact.

Many are swarthy, but no more so than a great deal of non-Melungeons all through the Appalachians. Many are blond and beautiful, and many are dark-haired and ugly.

Odds are even better than fifty-fifty that there really is no such thing as Melungeons, and that it all started because of simple racial prejudice back in the 1800s. Anyone with Native American blood, Jewish blood, or even Irish blood, was often the subject of persecution and isolation, and just like people have always done, groups of like formed.

When these groups happened to be poor, they often became outcasts, the subject or discrimination and ridicule, so they tended to isolate themselves even more, and close marriages produced offspring that perpetuated family characteristics.

All of which means nothing. You can find a different group of something every twelve feet throughout the Appalachians, but in reality, the only real differnces are usually in the minds of "researchers."

By all real accounts I've seen, Melungeons are simply people who have no more unusual characteristics in any way than any other group of people. They simply have the distinction of being singled out by well-meaning, but generally incompetent, researchers.
 

GPatten

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James, this is what I’ve considered too; that they are merely People, and that they have suffered over the racial prejudice back in the 1800s. I think that is the story, but wouldn’t it have been nice to know what we know now, and to have lived that experience back in the 1800s.

There is a time travel novel within that knowledge - - that story, but I’m not going to pursue another time travel novel. I’ve loved writing them, but no one seems to want time travel novels any more.

I lived with a woman from the Appalachians in the western part of North Carolina and the least I can say about her is she was unique, honest and a beautiful person in more ways, than one.

You, who have lived in the Appalachians, are lucky. I wish I had lived there at one time in my life.
 

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I haven't lived in the Appalachians but like James, I have family roots there. It's a wonderful part of the country. I once had a woman who had read one of my columns call me and insist that we were related AND that we were also Melungeons. I don't know that it's true or not; none of the family history I have indicates it but it is possible. Maybe someday I'll know for sure.
 

GPatten

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Thank you johnnysannie.

I have my head in my hands wondering how all this knowledge excaped me over the 72 years of life. As inquisitive as I’ve been of people, how could this have been hidden from me?
 

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What fascinates me...

is our modern mind set. The: 'People 100, 200, 1000, 2000 years ago couldn't possible travel/build/make such things.' The idea is that what we have in 2006 is because of our modern brains and skills and our ancestors couldn't possibly have/do it.

You meet this mind set in archaeologists, historians, and scientists and they hamper their own work by this narrow mindedness. They also forget how much we have forgotten and discarded by becoming machine orientated, technological people.

16/17thC Spanish armour turned up in sand dunes in a far north coastal region of Australia. Remains of a peculiar boat, not a canoe or double canoe, were found under sand dunes on the NZ coast. We know from the dive and spectacular finds that a 17thC Spanish tea ship got blown off course and wrecked on reefs not too far from Australia. Cornish tin turns up in Africa, in the remains of a city 3000 years old. The obvious and common sense answer is that more travel and trade took place than our mind set will allow. But the experts say NO.

If Brendan could reach the coast of America in an ox hide coracle and a 20thC practical researcher (Tim Severin) could replicate that voyage to America, why then are we still saying that our ancestors couldn't travel far and didn't trade much. We have examples like the Silk Road, but are told it is an exception. Curiosity is, and always has been, a human characteristic.

We look back and think: 'They couldn't travel that far in such a tiny boat.' They surely thought their wonderful new ship, the biggest and best ever. And it probably was!
 

GPatten

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It’s the same skeptical mindset we have today, and tomorrow for that mater.

Yesterday, we had the ignorance of what you’ve spoke of...and the topic of the Melungeons of the 1800s from the Appalachians.
Today, it’s the space exploration and the ignorance why should we? My experience of working for more than 45 years with NASA led me to know, we have a billiard board out there in space with billions upon billions of billiard balls.

Someone in time past has broken the set of billiard balls to start the game of heavenly billiards. It’s up to us to divert those balls from bashing into our ball. It’s a mater of time and we haven’t found a way to, yet.

As to the ignorance in the past; wouldn’t it be something to go back in time and author a book on the subject and bring it forth under a fictitious authors name and publish it?
 
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