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Brenda; I wanted to get back with you on this Melungeon topic.
Family researchers have now connected my 5th greatgrandfather, Benjamin Green, to the border of Hawkins and Hancock counties in Tenn.
Here is an example of what we have found;
Hawkins Co., Tn. Deed Book 3 page 95, Daniel Jones to Millenton Collins, Registered 1 April 1803.
20 dec. 1802 Daniel Jones of Henry Co. Ky., to Millenton Collins of Hawlins Co., Tn. $50.00, 60 acres more or less, north side of Copper Ridge in Mud Camp Valley; adj. Benj. Rice, Daniel Jones, BENJ. GREEN, Richard Turner, Joseph Bartlett, and Moses Johnson. Wit; John Thompson; Daniel McCoy.
Hawkins County, Tn. Microfilm, Roll 34, Tenn. State Library and Archives.
We have a deed for Benj. Green and his neighbor was Micajah Bunch.
There is also a deed for Richard Green, whom we suspect is my Ben’s uncle, located at the mouth of Blackwater Creek.
We also have located a Sizemore Cemetery at the foot of Copper Ridge. This area is located about four miles southeast of Newman’s Ridge and across the Clinch River. It is on Mill Creek just up stream from the old location of Wallen’s Mill.
Are you familiar with all of this? Do you know if these first Sizemores of Sizemore’s Valley and Cemetery were Edward and George?
Dan.
Linda,
You know, I may have seen that movie a long time ago. I have been checking on the 501 3c. I’m wondering if I should move this particular conversation to another location on the forum…..Well, it is a daunting process, but I don’t think it’s too far out of reach if we apply ourselves. I think, we want to become a corporation first, following the rules for getting a 501 3c. Then i think it would be do-able. Tell me where we should actually set up this conversation because I don’t like to interupt these other conversations. Espescially when the get so exciting and interesting. 🙂 Lynella.
Originally posted by Dan Akin
Brenda; I wanted to get back with you on this Melungeon topic.
Family researchers have now connected my 5th greatgrandfather, Benjamin Green, to the border of Hawkins and Hancock counties in Tenn.
Here is an example of what we have found;
Hawkins Co., Tn. Deed Book 3 page 95, Daniel Jones to Millenton Collins, Registered 1 April 1803.
20 dec. 1802 Daniel Jones of Henry Co. Ky., to Millenton Collins of Hawlins Co., Tn. $50.00, 60 acres more or less, north side of Copper Ridge in Mud Camp Valley; adj. Benj. Rice, Daniel Jones, BENJ. GREEN, Richard Turner, Joseph Bartlett, and Moses Johnson. Wit; John Thompson; Daniel McCoy.
Hawkins County, Tn. Microfilm, Roll 34, Tenn. State Library and Archives.
We have a deed for Benj. Green and his neighbor was Micajah Bunch.
Huh! I’ve been trying my darnedest to trace a David G. Gregory, who is supposed to have been born in Hawkins Co. TN, about 1809. (One possibility — Robert Gregory & Rachel Ross of Greene Co as parents.)
Meanwhile, other relatives are tracking Turners, I keep hearing Green mentioned as a probable family surname, and recently had a Bunch turn up (got to go dig up which one.) Hmm….
Dan, I am so excited that you have pinpointed your family to this area. I have always wondered about this Millenton Collins. Who he was and who he married. I have seen his name many times and wondered if Millenton and Meredith could have been the same person?? In early military records and tax records of Wilkes Co. NC I found Meredith spelled many different ways. Even later records when he lived on the farm at Shelby Creek in Pike Co. Kentucky most record keepers slaudered his name. I do know that he appeared on records in Russell Co. Va. from 1799-1809 living on Copper Creek. That Copper Creek area must cover a large area. ( Va/TN/KY )
If you cross over into Wallen Ridge I found my Roark & Brock families. My g-g-grandpa John W. Collins ( s/oMeredith) married 1) a woman by the name of Lydia Toner/Stoner 1821 Grainger Co. TN This married is recorded with GRIFFIN Collins as the bondsman and I have always wondered if Griffin and Meredith were brothers. 2) John W. married Mary Roark d/o John Roark and Nancy Sloan. Nancy Sloan was the d/o Thomas Sloan and Bartheia Brock d/o Jessie Brock and Rebecca Howard. All of these names somehow hook up with the Sizemore families but I have no Sizemore ancestors that I am aware of.
BTW: Jessie Brock is suppose to be the son of Aaron Brock aka “Chief Redbird” . Researchers are still trying to document this.
Hello Brenda and Everyone,
I am glad to meet all of you. I have just joined and finished reading all of the post in this thread.
I really got started looking into my family history because I always heard that I had Indian blood and was told that it was told down the generation that one of my ancestors claimed to be full blooded “Portygee Indian”. Well I set out to find out what the heck a “Portigee Indian” was. The Ancestor that was supose to have said that was Zachariah Minor. Well of course that put me on the Melungeon trail.
I purchased the book by Pat Spurlock Elder and started reading it. It has a lot of info in it that I would have never gotton through if I wasn’t determined to find the answer to my question. In the mean time I also purchased Lou Minor’s book, ” The Blacksmiths of Blackwater” and also the earlier mentoined book by Jack H Goins, “Melungeons and Other Pioneer Families”, both of which I finished reading and were very informative before I could get through the first book.
Well I finally finished the Pat Spurlock Elder book this evening. The whole book had many possible theories about where the Melungeons could have come from, she was very thorough in her research, but the last chapter which was actually an update from her original printing is what got me to make a search and lead me here. She sited a work of C S Everett . He proposed the possibility that people from a Colonial-era Potuskite tribe(a non-Cristianized branch of the Nansemond Indians) sometimes spelled Potuskey, could have misunderstood as “Portygee” and he said that the Goins-Minor clan once lived in Nansemond territory during INdian times.
Now for some reason that made more sense to me than all of the other theories in the book. Has anyone hard of the Potuskite Tribe?
Barb
Crystal needs to see your information. She’s from the “Portugeuse Settlment” in Northampton County, NC, one county over from Brunswick County, VA, the last known location of the tribal Saponi amalgam of Siouan tribes. She knows some of her family ties to the Nansemond. That settlement is very well documented as Indian, I know of historians who have tried to prove the authenticity of other groups by tying them to that one. What you’re saying about the origin of the word is very interesting and makes good sense.
There was also another tribe located in the old Granville Co area of North Carolina during the mid-late 1600’s that were called the Portee Indians. There was some legislature that ocurred that involved them. I’ll have to dig out the NC papers to see exactly what that was. The interesting thing is that in Granville Co, we also have 2 Poythress men that changed their name to Speight. It was during the early 1700’s.
What names besides Minor do you have in your line and what counties are you dealing with. This is the first that I have heard of the Non Christianized Nansemond being called Potuskey or any other name. The “non christianized” were no longer documented as a tribe after the split from the main tribe. They were absorbed into various other tribes and no more documentation exists on them.
One theory for the Portuguese title is coming through the Poythress line in that numerous enumerators couldn’t spell Poythress, let alone say it correctly so it sprang as an offshoot of Poythress.
Do you have documentation regarding the “Portuguese” title or is it just family linked.
I do have the NC Legislative papers that passed in 1921/23 to designate my group as Portuguese. Prior to that, we were all FPC, Mulatto, Colored, Black. I do know that some of the settlements in WVA were known as Portuguese as well.
Once I can get a list of surnames and counties, I can tell you which way to head in this. Don’t hold stock into the fact that there were tribes that have “Similar” names as Portuguese. This designation didn’t occur until much later and there is no proof of anything regarding the non-christianized Nansemond. Unfortunate for us, they melt into the other settlements.
Nansemond Territory is pretty much unchanged since the first documentation of them. Southside in Suffolk VA. They didn’t wander too much.
Look forward to hearing your lines,
My original information about Zacharariah Minor claiming to be “Full blooded Portagee Indian” is just work of mouth as far as I know.
What information I have about Zachariah and his Father Hesekiah Minor came from Lou Minor’s book and some from Jack Goins book. Hezekiah was thought to have been born in Halifax County, VA about 1765-75. He married Elizabeth Going(sometimes spelled Goin)(married in Henry County VA, 1795)( born about 1776 also Halifax county. In 1810 they were in Rockingham County NC. Sometime between 1810 qnd 1814 they moved to Lee County VA. By 1824 he moved to Hawkins(now Hancock) County TN.
These people are hard to keep up with.:rolleyes:
Now Zachariah, Hesekiah’s second child born in 1801 in Rockingham County NC. He married Aggie Sizemore(d. of George Sizemore and Lydia HageySizemore) in Hawkins County TN in 1824. Zachariah was “Free Colored ” in 1830 Hawkins County Census.
I don’t know if any of that tells you anything. There is a statement in Lou Minor’s book that states that it was handed down that Zachariah told his children that his parants had come from Virginia via Rockingham County, NC, then Wythe Couty, Grayson County, TN and then back through Knoxville to Hawkins County, TN.
Thanks for the replies.
🙂 🙂
Barb
Portagee – Eastern U.S., a person of Portuguese origin –http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-ethnic-slurs#wp-P
Unfortantely, this terminology has taken on more than what it was originally meant for. In the case of my settlement, it was used as a race designation that differed from Black and White. It became a legal designation which at that point, allowed them to vote and attain education for their children. Today, it is meant just as the term “Melungeon”, too vague to say either way. If only the Guineas of West VA could have that put on their birth certificates, maybe it would save alot of headaches for people chasing their tails.
You are in the right area for the Goins and the Sizemores. I, too, have Goins. So does Emma. I’m sure she’ll speak up here in a day or so to give you or question you more on your Goins line. The Goins, however, never claimed Portuguese. I have only 1 marriage of Goin into our settlement and that was a female so the name stopped there. The “Portuguese Settlement” has the surnames of Peters, Poythress, Turners, Bass, Scotts, Jarrell, Mitchell, Garner and Newsome. All carried the race as FPC, Mulatto, Colored, Black then to Portuguese. My sister and myself are the first generation in my line to be classified as white.
Another quick clue for you is the spelling. Although elsewhere, anyone of Portuguese descent spell it Portagee but for the “mixed bloods” that adapted that designation, it was always spelled Portuguese. 😉
Minor, Emma can tell you more on that name. I know it is one that originates in the piedmont of VA and is a prominant FPC name. Does anyone remember if Minor is on Pleckers list? It’s one that Emma and I have touched on numerous times. Not one that plays into the trade though.
Good luck!!!
Crystal,
Thank you so very much for your reply here.:) I really appreciate it. You answered some questions I had, and you did it very tactfully and that shows a lot of integrity, which is something you can be very proud of. I have Pleckler’s list, so I’ll check it right now and get back to you before I hit the sack. Love & Light, Lynella.
Crystal,
🙂 Minor and no other spelling of it is on there. I went through the list 3 times just to make sure. There are a good bit of familiar names on there, but not that one. Love & Light, Lynella.
HI
im new here and have been researching the Driggers family from pike co alabama and coffee co alabama.
i was wonderring if any one had hear of these names.
i have a isaac driggers who i think married a rodgers heard she was indian i belive they had a son named bennette driggers who married charity philpot they had two daughters one was drucilla driggers who married darling carter sr. they had about 10 kids and one was louisa carter married joseph hamilton stewart they had a son named joesph dinkins stewart sr my great grand father and they had im thinking 10 or so kids one was my grand father joseph dinkins stewart jr who died in atmore alabama. joseph sr marred a holmes i think. my grand father married a etta rogers.
any of this look familair to u?
p.s
some of the nmes my be wrong there are a lot of issac driggers shelly:)
I have several Melungeon surnames in my family tree, although I am not sure if I am Melungeon or not (but it seems to explain things for me). I have:
Allen
Boone
Brown
Gibson
Hall
Harris/Harrison = 2 branches
Jones
Moseley/Mosely/Mosley
Nelson
Newman
Polly
Russell/Bussell
Stewart
Taylor
Wright = 3 branches
These names are from direct line ancestors. I also wonder about the surname of Bryant, also since my Bryants go back to a Bryant woman married/living with a Polly man (the best I understand)
Anita B. aka Sparrow
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