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From: <>
Subject: [RHEA-L] Melungeons PART 3
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 23:55:28 EDT

There are some physiological characteristics which are called ethnic markers,
that seem to
be passed on through the lines of some Melungeon descendants. There is a
bump on the
back of the HEAD of SOME descendants, that is located at mid-line, just ABOVE
the
juncture with the neck. It is about the size and shape of half a golf ball
or smaller. If you
cannot find the bump, check to see if you, like some descendants, including
myself, have a
ridge, located at the base of the head where it joins the neck, rather than
the Anatolian
bump. This ridge is an enlargement of the base of the skull, which is called
a Central Asian
Cranial Ridge. My ridge is quite noticeable. It is larger than anyone else’s
that I have felt,
except my father’s. I can lay one finger under it and the ridge is as deep
as my finger is
thick. Other ridges are smaller. To find a ridge, place your hand at the
base of your neck
where it joins your shoulders, and on the center line of your spine. Run
your fingers
straight up your neck toward your head. If you have a ridge, it will stop
your fingers from
going on up and across your head. ONLY people who live/d in the Anatolian
region of
Turkey or Central Asia also have this “bump/ridge.”

There is also a ridge on the back of the first four teeth - two front teeth
and the ones on
either side (upper and lower) of some descendants. If you place your
fingernail at the gum
line and gently draw (up or down) you can feel it and it makes a slight
clicking sound.
The back of the teeth also curve outward rather than straight as the
descendants of
anglo-saxon parentage do. Teeth like these are called Asian Shovel Teeth.
Many Indian
descendants also have this type of teeth. The back of the first four teeth
of Northern
European descendants are straight and flat. An example of northern European
teeth would
be similar to this diagram: \l Shovel teeth look like this diagram. Back of
teeth )/ front of
teeth, straight.

SOME Melungeon descendants have what is called an Asian eyefold. This is
rather
difficult to describe. At the inner corner of the eye, the upper lid
attaches slightly lower
than the lower lid. That is to say that, it overlaps the bottom lid. If you
place your finger
just under the inner corner of the eye and gently pull down, a wrinkle will
form which
makes the fold more visible. Some people call these eyes, “sleepy eyes,
dreamy eyes,
bedroom eyes.” Many Indian descendants also have these kinds of eyes.

Some families may have members with fairly dark skin who suffer with
vitiligo, a loss of
pigmentation, leaving the skin blotched with white patches. Some descendants
have had
six fingers or toes. There is a family of people in Turkey whose surname
translated into
English is “Six Fingered Ones.”

If your family has an Indian Grandmother(father) ‘myth’ which you have been
unable to
prove, an adoption story that is unprovable, or an orphan myth, and they have
been hard
to trace and they lived in NC, TN, KY, VA, WV areas in the early migration
years or if
they seem to have moved back and forth in these areas and if they share any
of the
mentioned surnames and characteristics, you MAY find a connection here. Some
descendants do not show the physical characteristics and of course, there are
many people
with the surnames who are not connected to this group.

Now, if I have piqued your interest, here is a URL for the Melungeon
Homepage,
designed and hosted by Darlene Wilson, that I have found which has a lot of
information
on the Melungeons. There is also a guestbook/forum on this list where you
can place your
queries and read those of others:

http://www.clinch.edu/appalachia/melungeon/

Be sure and read all the pages and connected links! This is NOT a genealogy
page,
but carries Melungeon information and research. Darlene is NOT a genealogist
and
she has not set up this site to handle queries to her. She is a researcher
and a doctural
candidate with a very busy schedule. There is excellent documentation on this
interesting
group and it will give you the necessary information so that you can more
easily
understand the Melungeons, and their reasons for doing what they did. What I
am giving
you summarizes some but NOT ALL the information.

Dr. N. Brent Kennedy’s book, ‘The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud
People,’
both a genealogy and theoretical search for answers, is a must read for
anyone who is
connected to this group. Most bookstores can order this book in paperback
for you.
From some information in Dr. Kennedy’s book and information from the Second
Union
Planning Committee, you can see the necessity for these people to hide.

These proud, strong, courageous, people were discriminated against by their
Scots-Irish
and English neighbors as they moved into the areas where the Melungeons
lived. They
wanted the rich valley lands occupied by the Melungeons they found residing
there. They
practiced RACIAL discrimination against the Melungeons because they were
darker
skinned than their own anglo-saxon ancestors and because this helped them
obtain the
lands they coveted. In a society where slavery was an accepted way of life,
where
genocide against the American Indian was government policy, hiding was
sometimes the
only way to survive. This discrimination carried into the 1940’s-50’s and
perhaps even
longer, because of the work of a man named Walter A. Plecker, who was the
state of
Virginia’s first Director of Vital Statistics and an avowed racist. Some
Germans say that it
was he, who first gave them the idea of eugenics, that was used during WWII
to help
exterminate 60 million Jews. Plecker labeled the Melungeons, calling them
‘mongrels’ and
other worse terms - some were labeled FPC - Free Person of Color in Virginia.
This in
turn led to their children being labeled as Mulatto (M) and both of those
terms came to
mean “BLACK.” (There is information on Plecker and the letters he wrote to
all the
counties in VA and the surrounding states to marginalize and discriminate
against the
Melungeons on the Melungeon Homepage. Check under the Archives section.) Some
Melungeon families married white, some black, some Indian, some a
combination. But for
all of them, the terms led to rulings in which they couldn’t own property,
they couldn’t
vote, and they couldn’t school their children. Is it any wonder that they
became
ANYTHING else in order to do these things? They hid their backgrounds with
the Indian
myth, with the orphan myth (my family are all dead) , and the adopted myth,
and they
changed either the spelling of their surnames or they picked an entirely new
name, moving
many times, anything to distance themselves from their Melungeon heritage.
They became
‘Black Dutch,’ ‘Black Irish,’ ‘Black Scot or Swede,’ or some other
combination to hide
their “otherness.” Is it any wonder they are so hard to find? They
deliberately made it so,
in order for their descendants to have a better life than they had had.

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