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Going back and reading the article I posted here, it says that black or gray eyes are common to Melungeon families. Is there any truth to gray eyes being prevalent among the group?
My great-grandfather had very pale gray/green eyes that were striking against his dark hair and tan skin.
http://www.saponitown.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2746&highlight=gray+eyes
Hi Rockhound,
Dark Brown and hazel are most common in my family, however, the occasional blue/gray/green combination does pop up from time to time.
Shirley
The “Dalton eyes” are so dark brown that they appear black with no pupil. I have been told on numerous occasions that my eyes are like black holes that draw you into them.
I have a good friend who descends from the Fleming branch of the Rolfe family who has gray eyes with a gold ring around the gray. Has anyone else seen this feature in eastern mixed bloods?
Hey Gold and grey that is way too cool, sounds like something out of a NGM cover.
In my family we have mainly dark brown to hazel, but the of course there is blue because of the “Scanda-whovics”, mine are hazel, hair was very dark brown with bronze highlights.
Now this is interesting to me…because I just recently started charting eye color on WWI DRC’s that I have located for my “kin” and I was just stunned at how many had listed either Blue or Grey under their eye color…I am 1 of 7 children and 6 of us have mother’s blue eyes…and yes they oft times look grey or even so pale they almost look whitish and we do have those “golden rings” and flecks in them…in KY they call our eyes “cornflower” eyes because of the coloration and flecking…as I have mentioned before, we were always told (family tales/stories) that we are from a “Blue Eyed Cherokee” lineage…sounds very strange to many because of what we have seen in movies etc about Native peoples having predominantly dark brown , almost black eyes. Anywho…thus far on my maternal tree I have viewed 183 draft cards and of that number, 111 list either blue or grey as their eye color. If, as I understand it genetically, blue is a non dominant eye color gene, why then are there just so many ppl in my maternal lines that have/has that eye color? My father had just dark chocolate eyes…yet here I sit (and 5 of 6 siblings too) with these pale eyes….and too, 3 of my 5 children have my same blue eyes despite paternal dark dark brown eyes. Is there a genetecist in the house? I could sure use a “layman’s tutorial” on just how it comes to pass that a non-dominant eye color can have such vast prevalence. Also wanted to mention that the farthest back I have seen in my direct maternal line by way of eye coloration is my GG grandfather, he had these same blue eyes…and too his son (my G grandfather) and his children too, including my grandmother Arabella…and my mother and both of her sibs. As to my sibling’s children…of my nieces and nephews , 10 have blue eyes and 2 have dark brown eyes….the 2 with dark brown eyes are children of my only brown eyed sibling…yet his other 3 daughters have blue eyes. Thanks for listening to my rambling…LOL…I think thsi is a very interesting and intriguing topic. Blessings~~~Laurie
Well, no blue/hazel/gray eyes here. 2 of my siblings were born with gray eyes, that later turned brown. On my mom’s side of the family there are very light brown eyes. Also my grandfather and his mother had greenish/yellow eyes that changed color…..weird.:confused:
On Dad’s side they have mostly dark brown eyes. I have very, very, very drk brown eyes that look black. When I stare at some of my sisters, it really makes them quesy for some reason. They start giggling and can’t stop……even if they aren’t looking at me! They can feel my eyes boring a hole into them…..I like making them squirm and feel the little pricklies on their neck…..lol. “Roni! Cut it out….you’re spooking me!!” It’s worse when I’m angry. They say “If looks could kill, I’d be dead!” I never knew why my eyes had that effect on people, some say I look mean and serious all the time. I don’t know why….I try to smile…but that’s just the way I look! Maybe I’ll put a pic on here some time. (I hate taking pics!) and maybe it’ll scare a few of you guys….:eek: Haha!
So Dreaminghawk, I guess I’m your cuz…..
Well, I don’t know much about eye color and genetics, but have seen in my own children how random it can be. I have two boys with auburn/br colored eyes, one girl with my hazel green, two girls with gray and one girl with black. My husband is hispanic/German and his eyes are brown, his father’s brown/black and my father’s are brown/black. However, my mother’s are blue as are my husband’s mother, so go figure…:confused:
Shirley
I used to have very dark eyes almost black. And then lately I’ve noticed that my eye color is getting lighter. I even have the color blue around the outer layer. What is that all about? My eye doctor said that there’s no need to be concern.
My Granddaddy Lewis had green eyes and out of all his children, his granddaughter (my cousin) Tonya has green eyes.
Yes, I’ve been told that my eyes are very mysterious/exotic. At times I can speak through my eyes without saying a word. They can seem spookie to others. 🙂
Sounds pretty optimistic…I have seen that blue/grey ring around brown eyed folks before and wonder if that is some recessive blue trait…much like the golden or yellow ring around my blue eyes could be a waylaid brown trait? I think it is neat and interesting hwo eyes can alter and change color…often depending upon what we wear, our mood or even the weather. Speaking of eye doctors here….I had cause to go se eone some 10 years ago (my first eye doc visit as an adult) because I noticed that well, to be honest here if I can (LOL) I started destroying my car mirrors! No kidding…I’d get home from work or the store at night and pull down my driveway (which at teh time was a private road, not lit) and then I’d hit my remote opener to pull my van inside and SLAM!…there I’d go tearing away a mirror….all told I did this 5 times before my husband finally said: Geez Laurie…go get your eyes checked! Ha. And so I did and whiel at the office the doc did all the usual tests and then he started to dilate my eyes to examine them more fully and he says: Aha! Mystery solved!…he then told me I had a condition called “Blonde Eye”…I had never heard of suh a thing before…and he explained that my eyes do not dilate effectively or normally…and when I am driving at night I adjust just fine but when a sudden light (garage door opener light or even headlights cresting a hill) appears…my pupils do not adjust…causing a degree of blindness. Needless to say there is no “cure” for this I just have to be more cautious and aware of it…and I do wear glasses at nite or when driving that are somewhat tinted so that the light is filtered if/when it appears. He said this “condition” is somewhat common in ppl who are pale or fair with typically blonde or light hair and yes, blue eyes. Footnote: since that visit, I have only “trashed” one more mirror. Anywho…take care~~~ Laurie
Hey Rock….I’m with ya on this…I can relate…my oldest daughter has such pale pale eyes that they do almost look eerily white at times…I have no further knowledge nor explanation of it as of yet. Will see what i can google up about it though. Take care~~~Laurie
This topic has been of interest to me lately. Interesting that it keeps coming up.
I have green eyes, or at least so I always thought until recently.
I have been asked on several occasions across the past year if my eyes are grey. It just perplexes me when I get asked about my eyes when for my whole life I’ve always thought I had green eyes.
I have been asked in the past on occasion what color my eyes are and never understood why someone would ask such an obvious question. Obvious to me of coarse, but I guess I was always perplexed by the question since they can see for themselves what color my eyes are.
One day I was looking at some pictures I had taken of myself and began to understand the questioning a bit more. My eyes seem to look grey with an outer ring of green. When I was younger my eye color often changed from a light blue-green to some times a light yellowish-orangy-green. I have been told that people with hazel colored eyes have a tendancy to get this affect with the color of their eyes. So I guess my eyes are a light green to grey with orangy highlights or flecks (i.e. green-hazel).
Either that or who knows.
There several pictures of some of my ancestors and relatives with this light light eye color. When you see the old black and white photos their eyes almost look white. They have often reminded me of that Afgan girl that Time magazine took a picture of many years back.
I have been thinking about the eye color thing too lately. It’s interesting, Laurie, that you mention KY–my major paternal line (Mullins/Fleming) with lots of grey eyes are on the KY/WV border. From what I can tell, they’re very heavily Indian indeed, though most people wouldn’t think they look it. I take after that side. There are a lot of us who are pale with greyish eyes, some darker but still with the eyes, and basically all the associated names and locations are very Indian. The occasional Irishman wouldn’t seem to account for all of it.
My eyes are greyish with the golden/green ring around the pupil and a darker bluish ring around the outside which makes the whole thing look bluer. There is a lot of variation in that family line, from light grey to inclusions of various green and blue elements, basically laid on top of the grey making the eyes darker. Some are darker plain grey. Mine are actually dark enough that they cause red-eye in pictures, which isn’t so usual for “lighter” eyes. Now they know that eye color isn’t as simple as they used to think (http://www.genetree.com/resource/eyeColorCalculator.php), which would explain a lot.
Part of my mom’s family, in VA, tends more toward the “chinquapin” eyes and darker hair and skin. My maternal grandmother’s family in WV, though, has more of the grey-blue eyes thrown in and a lot of them are lighter-skinned. My mom couldn’t help but notice that you just don’t see either type of eye color in Britain or in the Rhineland, having spent time both places. You sure don’t see the same shades in Southern England, I’ve seen that. They do seem to be distinctly American combinations of colors.
The polygenic thing also seems to explain why two blue-grey eyed parents where I’m from will sometimes have a chinquapin-eyed child, who frequently does look like the father! In our McCraw/Taylor bunch, they were called “black babies”, since the darker “Indian” skin and hair usually go along with it (also polygenic). That is one thing I have enjoyed with Montel Williams, his frequently pointing out that if you’re mixed your children are likely to turn out looking like anything. This certainly seems to be the case in our family and area.
For what it’s worth, I have run across a possible explanation for all the greyish eyes. Apparently the Delaware, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, and a shedload of other people did have stories about paler, grey-eyed people who married into a lot of other groups. People keep going on fantastically about “giants” so that it’s hard to sort through, but there seems to be something to it–and everybody else seemed to be giants to the Romans, for example. I am still surprised at how short the English are, for that matter. Average male height is 5’7″; I’m an inch over that and not particularly tall at home. You can’t help but notice when you’re standing there, waiting for the bus, and are taller than all 9 of the other women there. (As happened again yesterday.)
The best I can tell, these folks would just be the original inhabitants. If a group of grey-eyed people was living in the Ohio Valley, it would make sense that there still seem to be an awful lot of us from the Ohio drainage, and beyond. A bit more of a stretch, but it might also help explain why the name “Allegheny” stuck so firmly in the New River Valley–may sound unlikely, but there is apparently something besides confusion behind all the “Catawba” placenames. I have also noticed similar eye color among some of the Iroquois; Joel Montour is striking that way, on the jacket photo of one beadwork book he looks like a younger version of my (Mullins) granddaddy. I’ve also seen a lot of the “moon eyes” among the Cherokee.
Here are a couple of (variable quality) pages on the Allegewi:
http://www.soquilicenter.org/update2.htm
http://www.melungeons.com/articles/jan2006.htm
Looking at that second page again, we also have a lot in the family, even the darker ones, whose hair is really prone to sunbleaching. I wind up with orange straw if I’m not careful.
A lot of the “Paleo-Indian” speculations strike me as just more of the usual Eurocentric crap. It would be really amazing if a coracle full of Irishmen (longboat of Norwegians, etc.) managed to produce such a phenotypic dent in a whole continent full of people. It’s pretty arrogant to assume that people were only travelling in one direction. I have to give Vine Deloria credit on this one. It’s not exactly hard to wind up in Northern Europe once you hit the Gulf Stream; hard to avoid, actually. There are the so-called Solutrean points showing up in the Carolinas and VA, and then in Spain and France (with an admitted new cultural group)…hmm. For that matter, my mom was struck by how much my almost stereotypically Viking-looking Swedish husband looks like he could be from SW VA (except for his clear blue eyes, ha). It is kind of funny. (No shortage of red beards at home, either.) If so many of them weren’t seemingly immune to shame by now, some of the expounders of these hideous racist theories would be pretty embarrassed when evidence turns up that even they can’t ignore of people just popping back and forth across the Atlantic for longer than they’ll admit there were people to do so. The genetic overlap is making enough people uncomfortable.
Sorry to go on and on, but this is interesting. 🙂
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