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I’m hoping not to offend anyone here but I have questions about this Melungeon business.
First, I have shovel teeth and the ridge on the back of my head and the asian fold in my eyes but my family was never in Hancock county or anywhere near that in fact. We have done our genealogy all the way back to the early 1600’s and all of our lines go back to southeastern Virginia and later into northeastern North Carolina were we still are today. My family lines come from Norfolk Va, Surry co. Va, Southhampton Co VA, Westmoreland Co Va, Northhampton Co Va, and Isle of Wright Co. VA. And in North Carolina: Chowan Co, Bertie Co, Halifax Co.,Edgecombe Co, Wilson co, and Nash Co., Pitt Co. Washington Co and Hyde Co.
Second, can anyone tell me how I carry all of these supposed Melungeon traits?
Frankly I believe these are traits carried through generations of whites and natives mixing. We have found records in Bertie Co NC were our ancestors had to prove there children were white. Just a generation before that they lived in Surry and Southhampton Counties in Va and lived among and next to the Nottoway. My Blow and Smith ancestors witnessed sale of land by the Nottoways With this knowledge my family believes when we headed south into Chowan and Bertie Co. NC that some of the Nottoway came with us. I don’t have a single doubt about whether or not I carry Nottoway blood. I know I do. Another interesting thing is just one generation later we married into the Robbins of Chowan County( before it became Gates) then we moved into Halifax district of Edgecombe County before they split up. Later they became two separate counties. We moved there in and around the 1740’s right around the same time many Saponi were heading that way. We believe our Etheridge line married with the Saponi but we are one generation from proving that. The problem is we cannot find the name of the lady who married our gggggrandfather Caleb Etheridge and had many children 8 I believe. We have family pictures of both lines Moore and Etheridge and both lines have considerable indian traits especially our Etheridge line(my sister has the pictures). My great grandmother was a Moore and her mother was a Etheridge. We know the Moore line is Nottoway and possibly Chowan. And from the look of our Etheridge they are Saponi through and through. Also there is no evidence in all these 100’s of years of any African American in my bloodlines. So still my question is how did I get all of these supposely Melungeon traits?
My grandmother said indian with a big emphasis on Siouian when she was questioned about our appearance and her appearance. Where she came up with Siouian in the 1960’s I don’t know but she did. She never said Blackfoot just Siouian. There is of course considerable indian history in my family beginning in very early colonial times until the present time. When I spoke to my 80 year old aunt the other day I was telling her all that I had learned from my research. I mentioned the Nottoway and she got quiet and then said I have heard that somewhere Linda but I didn’t remember until you just said it. Then out of the blue she says grandpa John had Nottoway in him. John Moore was her great grandfather. She said she didn’t know anything about Chowan so maybe our Robbins weren’t Chowan I don’t know can’t prove it. Then I mentioned the Saponi and she said yes Linda that is correct then she goes on to say the Haliwa-Saponi live 10 miles from her. She said she didn’t know exactly what tribes because she didn’t remember what her grandmother Nancy Moore had told her when she was a small child. So when I mentioned the tribes it all came flowing back to her. She pretty much told me to rest easy in my knowledge now because she was sure because of her memories that we are Saponi/Nottoway. I still want to make that final connection to the Saponi though although it’s not important to her as she says she knows who she is. I believe shovel teeth and asian eye folds are native traits since all of us still carry these traits with many other traits including black hair and black eyes. I personally have midnight blue eyes that can appear black at times. ok now I’m rambling….but seriously if I’m not Melungeon how do I have these Melungeon traits unless they are really NA traits?
Linda
Dear Linda,
In another forum, Vance came up with records that said that Melungeon meant Mixed Tribe originally. I think that the idea of mixed race probably had fact, and fiction. We are all mixed race at this point. How many of us carry traits….well, that is what biologists call the difference between genotype and phenotype.
Geneotype means what your genes hold. Phenotype means how they are manifested in your appearence. You can have traits that are NA in appearance, (morphology), and also you may have traits which do not appear obviously.
I find Vance’s line of thinking the most logical. When several tribes came to gether to live, they had certain issues, assuredly, that was a question of tirbes living with tribes, many of whom may have previously been enemies, many of whom had language barriers, many of whom still had the tribal prejudices that they may have had for centuries. It was a whole new world for them in these respects, as well as the loss of lands, loss of members, loss of lifestyle. Not only would they have had to adapt to each other, they still were odd man out concerning the big Indian confederacies. Reading some of the research of the good people here….when you have tribes consisting of 15 warriors…what do you have left? 15 guys between the ages of 16 and 45? That’s hardly a bus load left of a tribe. Typical how the women and children, as well as the elderly, seem to have been uncounted.
If you will pardon me, I think that we mixed blood Indians are the original Americans. We are native, we are mixed, we are modern, we are assimilated, we are literally tens of thousands in number. We are the Creole Nation that was so feared.
Pip
Thanks Lynne for the kind words.
Quest for Facts,
I personally don’t place a lot of faith in shovel teeth, bumps in the head, large or small toes, et cetera — and all of the other things you will find on some “Melungeon” websites, as having much relevance. I too have those charasteristics. I will just assume them to be generic human charasteristics until I have proof in my hands otherwise. What would convince me that this is important would be for me personally to observe teeth, head bumps, and toes of a great many people . . . and I don’t wanna smell the breaths that many mouths, so it’s unlikely I’ll be convinced . . . I’ve got the doubting Thomas syndrome. 🙂
In Carlson’s dissertation he pretty much proves “some” Melungeon families came from the Saponi. Those same traits are sometimes said to be “Indian” . . . but for all I know, Ethiopians, or Tibetans, or the French might have some of these traits also — someone needs to show me others don’t have these traits.
vance
I’m with you there Vance:) But just to get a bit of information my son does not have shovel teeth. His father is of German and Irish descent. He does however have the ridge on his skull and second toes longer than big toes as I do. My ex husband has the ugliest feet this side of heaven but his big toe is longer than all the others unlike mine. And he’s a big *** which is why he is ex 😉 .
Linda
Dear Vance,
I respect your quest for scholarship, research, and stringent requirement for fact, not fantasy.
Just a word about shovel shaped incisors, they are a prevelent NA trait, and are listed among archaeologists as an indicator of Native American population. I cannot say what the frequency is among these old remains of S.shaped incisors. Granted, these incisors are being talked about on very old skulls. In the modern population, they would show up as genetic drift. They are actually very pronounced. The back of the incisors themselves are almost hollowed, more like a scoop that you would find in an old time general store. I only worked with Eastern Woodland populations in the Tenn. Valley area, circa 10,000 BC But I want to say that the Americas were not my area of expertise. I did most of the field work in my erstwhile career in Tenn. among the Over The Hill Cherokee, around the Little Tenn River. We excavated Echota….and made a real mess of it. The Tellico Dam was due to come in and it was salvage archaeology plain and simple. It was done under the auspices of the U. Of Tenn in Knoxville, and the paymaster was the Tenn Valley Authority. We excavated sites all along the Little Tenn River, which is now completely underwater. It still saddens me to think about it all. Echota should have been a major historic site. The bits and pieces of the life of the OH Cherokee probably remain in the huge museum boxes that are stored in the U of Tenn McClung Museum in Knoxville. What I saw as an archaeologist disappointed me greatly. Even the proffs, the PhDs in this area seemed incompetent to me. They rejected tons of scrapers and other knapped flints and simply discarded them. Most of what we found in the middens, besides the remains of food animals, were trade beads. As the Echota dig wore on and time became even shorter, we were excavating burials with a backhoe……I don’t think I need to tell you what that did to the burial. Actually, this and the last dig, CRBRP as it was called…put me off archaeology.
Anyway, good talking to you.
Lynne
Quest for Facts,
That’s the problem with this train of thought. Why would all Melungeons — the word means “mixed”, all have traits of one race and not any others? In a mixed population wouldn’t some have these traits and some not have them?
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That is very interesting, Lynne. Did anyone know or speculate as to just when the Cherokee first moved into this area? I recall seeing maps showing the Yuchi/Euchee on the Tennessee River with the Cherokee further east, on the Little Tennessee.
The only way for them to have been living that close to one another is if they were allies at that time, or perhaps one was subservient to the other.
But 10,000 years ago it is likely neither the Yuchi nor the Cherokee would have been there.
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What did the archaeologists do with the human remains? Did these stories of shovel teeth, bumps in the head, and longer/shorter toes come from records that were writtten up in scientific journals? You see these stories all over the internet, but you don’t see where the information originated very often. I admit I have just assumed this, and haven’t researched it, one way or the other.
Just curious.
Vance
Dear Vance,
Some of these sites went back as far as 10,000 BC. On those sites there were no human remains. There were hearths, river cobbles used to cook with, broken points, scrapers, that’s about all.
When we worked at Echota, it ran from a period of about circa 1500AD to after contact. It was fully within the Woodland Period, and it was ON the Little Tenn River, almost right on it, on a slightly elevated site. These remains were in poor condition, the soil does not preserve bone very well as it is highly acidic.
The remains were bagged, and tagged. There was not a lot left. The bones were highly degraded, and mealy, and in bits. If you want to know if they were reburied, or given to the Cherokee Nation, then as far as I know, the answer is No. They are most probably still bagged and tagged and in the bowels of the museum, along with anything else that was found.
These boxes contain everything that was found, but the bones, are kept separately in museum drawers, in their plactic bags, with a number, and coordinates as to where they were found on the site. They are in such poor condition, that you can’t see what kind of accidents or diseases that the people had to deal with.
That site was a real mess, and not excavated very well. For the capitol of the OH Cherokee, it should have yeilded a lot more, and if properly excavated, should have told us a lot more. It was badly overgrown, and was cleared with bulldozers, which I can tell you, is NOT something that you are supposed to do. The head guy, just took off 2 feet of soil in this manner right away, which means that he destroyed a lot of stuff, and a lot of stuff was moved when the earth was moved, which means that provenience was not right…and provenience is a big deal in Arch.
We water screened loads of earth, and found a zillion trade beads. In fact, it was one of the the most frequently found items on the site, which means in turn, that it was a very rich site, filled with trade items that indicated a rich people. I have no idea why Echota was excavated so late in the timetable of the salvage operation within the building of the Tellico Dam. If the Dam weren’t going in, it would probably still be unexcavated, as it had been for gobs of years, hundred, two hundred or more.
The Cherokee knew that it was being excavated, because I had a couple of friends from the NC rez who were working with us on it, they were just diggers. As far as I know, no application was ever made to recover any of this stuff. The Little Tenn River was rife with sites, of all sizes. There was no way they could have all been even tested before that Dam went in. The best excavated site was Rose Island. Its an island in the Little Tenn River, it was largely undisturbed, yielded the best in terms of care of excavation, mapping, recovery of everyday items, burials in situ. These remains were in a similar bad condition, though not crushed as the Echota site was.
Usually, human remains are treated very carefully, and picked out of the earth very delicately with dentist tools. They are photographed in situ, no matter how much or how little remains of the burial. Then they are carefully extracted and bagged and tagged, and taken to the museum as soon as possible. No one without a Master’s is allowed to touch them. Typically, they reside in the museum, and I have never seen them on display in that particular museum. Most museums show some kind of artist’s rendition of a burial.
The McClung may have some kind of agreement on the return of remains, if they do, I don’t know about it. I do know that when I worked there in the 70’s, they didn’t.
Lynne
PS Vance,
I don’t know anything about bumps on the head, or any of the other things you mentioned. I only know that shovel shaped incisors have been described as a prominent feature of Indian populations, pre European contact.
I do not know about the frequency of this feature. I do not know if all NA, precontact, had shovel shaped incisors. I have never read that this feature was found in other populations around the world. I have read that it is not a promenent feature of European teeth. This is the limit of my knowledge on this subject. As I said, the Americas were not my area of expertise. Heh…its the Scandinavian Bronze Age. Don’t ask…..its over now.
Lynne
hi Vance and Lynne,
I’d like to throw all my surnames found in my families out at you guys and see if any of this means anything to either of you.
Etheredge, Moore, Maddox, Hodges, Pridgen, Davenport, Little, Rogers, Ruffin, Sessums, Llewellyn, Everett, Amerson, Smith, Bush, Robbins, Wynne, Bailey, White, Parkes, Meeks, Whitehurst, Wainwright, Culmer, Hill, Horn, Price, Batchelor, Moonaham, Proctor, Thrower, Farmer, Bryant, Dew, Braswell,Rollins,Braxton.
Like I said all of these families were southern Virginia and northern North Carolina.
There is also a Mayo or two mixed in with my Meeks line and possibly Nicholas too.
Linda
Dear Quest,
Smith was my grandmother’s name. My father said that she was a Haliwa Indian. I have not been able to spend the time looking into her background. From the very little that I have seen on census, the Smiths, the Peppers, the Edmondsons, the Shaws, the Bobbitts, all seem to have been interelated. How, and how many times over, I can’t really say at this point, I only know about the Peppers and the Shaws so far. Elliot (Ellet) Shaw is listed as a mulatto. There are reams of Smiths listed as mulatto, but I have not had the time to go to Raleigh and try to get my grandmother’s birth certificate so that I will know who her father was, and then, who his father was.
Regards,
Lynne
Lynne,
Richard Smith is who I am looking for he was in Surry and Southhampton counties in Virginia in the 1600’s and early 1700’s. I have zero records on him before he married Margaret Blow. Margaret was George Blow’s widow. I believe she was a Lane before she married him but not sure…she could have possibly been a Nicholas the records are confusing on this. But Richard Smith just appeared their a few years before he married her an he didn’t own any land he lived on the Blow’s land. And it is said the Blow’s ran the woods and fields with the Nottoway Indians. Richard’s daughter Elizabeth Smith married Thomas Sessums and when they moved to Chowan/Bertie County in NC Thomas had to prove his children were white. My gut tells me Richard Smith was the christian name given to a Nottoway who befriended the Blow family. When Margaret died he married the widow of John twyford I believe her name was Mary. He went on to have several other children with Mary. Elizabeth was the only child he had with Margaret Blow. Elizabeth had a half brother name Richard Blow and just by the records with in the county it is clear he was a good friend to the Nottoway people. The Blows ended up buying some of the Nottoway lands when they started selling it off int he 1700’s. Thomas Sessums is the son of Nicholas Sessums. Nicholas was a very wealthy man he owned something like 1800 acres in Surry County, Va. He was a allied with George Blow close family connections. The records state Nicholas Sessums owned many slaves some black some indian. This information really bothered me until my sister pointed out that he was a close friend and neighbor of George Blow. George Blow also owned slaves black and indian. According to the records that is. Like I said earlier the Nottoway had free run of the Blow land and most likely the Sessums land as well. My sister and i wonder if somehow claiming them as slaves for tax purposes somehow made them safer from the colonial government of that time. Another thing of interest here is that the Nottoway did at times attack white settlements in that area but they never touched the Blow, Sessums or the Wynnes. If you ask me if these families were holding my people in captivity(slavery) I think I would have been attacking them. Makes you wonder doesn’t it? And then there’s the fact Thomas Sessums had to prove his children were white puts a whole new kink in the story huh? I’m thinking Thomas’s money bought their “white” status. When the Sessums and Wynne’s moved into Chowan/bertie counties in NC Richard Blow stayed Va and built a large plantation called Rose Hill in what is today Southampton County Va. Elizabeth Smith of course went to NC with her husband Thomas Sessums. The other children of Richard Smith stayed in Southampton cty. but I know some of them moved into Granville County NC. and moved on from there. The grandson of Thomas Sessums, Culmer Sessums moved into the Halifax district of Edgecome county which became Halifax county. Culmer married Elizabeth Llewlyn and their daughter Mary married Elijah Moore. Which I just learned came out of Bertie county also and before that Nansemond County, Va. My Etheredge lines are a real puzzle I have 2 of them. I know all of them came out of Norfolk Va. some went into Currituck Cty. and some went into Halifax Cty. I descend from Caleb and Nathan Etheredge. We know Caleb was the son of Aaron but we don’t have a clue who Nathan’s parents are. Nathan’s wife was Keziah(unknown). You know I just thought geesh she probably doesn’t care about all of this 😮
Thanks for reading it anyway.
Linda
Heh. Of course I care about it.
It is possible that you and I, and many other people on this fourm, are all related, if we go back far enough.
It sounds to me like your forbears that had to prove they were white, were probably Indians, mixed blood, ….the world was different then. It also sounds as if the Nottoway had a reason not to attack, and it is entirely possible that Indians were listed as slaves to keep them from being removed, or driven off.
When it comes to “proving” your NA heritage, stories like this may not cut the mustard…..but when you read history without prejudice, stories like this make a lot of sense. It also gives one a picture of what it must have been like, what it must have been to live in those days, and what people had to do to survive, or just get along.
Good talking to you,
Lynne
Quest For Facts,
I haven’t posted in over two years (even though I regularly visit and read the Saponitown Forum two or three times a week). The quality of the comments in the forum are, as usual, quite good.
Anyhow, I just wanted to let you (Quest For Facts) know that I share at least two of your surnames: WYNNE and BRAXTON. And, if you stretch MAYO to include MAYNOR, then its perhaps three surnames we share.
I’ve traced my WYNNEs back to Adam Wynne (born circa 1775) of Wayne County, NC. I believe him to have been a Nottoway descendant.
I haven’t looked at my charts for several years now so I’m going on memory for my BRAXTON line, but as I recall, a SUSAN BRAXTON married into my BREWINGTON line circa 1830 in Cumberland County, NC. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find anything about the BRAXTONs or their Indian connections, if any.
Finally, my MAYNOR line may be a corruption of MAYO (or vice versa), but probably not. Although I have no proof, I believe my Maynor line descends either from the Chowans or the Saponi.
Take care.
Roy
Thanks Lynne for your comments and for reading all my stuff.
I have other names to add to my lineage: Williams, Branch and quite possibly Simmons and Newsom. I was given the number for the man who is helping to organize the Nottoway in North Carolina I called him and told him my lineage. He told me it sounds as though several of my lines head right back to the old Nottoway rez in Southampton county. He is sending me the lineage chart and tribal application to fill out.
Roy,
Have you been able to connect your Wynne’s to Bertie, Chowan or Hertford Counties in North Carolina? They orginally came out of Surry and Southampton in Virginia. In Hertford county there is a town called Winton were many Nottoway decsendants live today. Anyway Winton use to be Wynnetown because the Wynne family gave the land to the county to set up a county seat many many years ago. Today it is Winton on the Chowan River which of course turns into the Nottoway River at the state line. The Wynns married into my Sessums line which we are completely sure married Nottoway women. I also know that many of the siblings of my direct line headed down into Wayne, Sampson and Robeson counties in North Carolina. As I said my direct lines headed into Edgecombe and Halifax counties and some of the siblings of my Moore line headed into Granville County. My Moore line married into the Branch line from the Nottoway rez. My Sessums line married into the Smith line of the Nottoway. Another interesting thing in my lines is that my Ruffin line had a part in buying the indenture of my Sessums line and my Ruffin line bought part of the Nottoway rez when they sold it and yes they paid the Nottoway money for it. Ruffin line married into the Newsom and Simmons line which are familes that are Nottoway descent this could possibly be my third link to the Nottoway people. This link is a surprise though because it is my maternal grandfather’s line and within my family it has only been told that we are Indian through my maternal grandmother( my Sessums and Moore lines and my Etheridge line). Our Etheridge lines moved from Norfolk Virginia into Halifax and Egdecombe counties. We know we have Indian there too but are unable to really prove it. It is believed to be Saponi because of things my grandmother told us. My lines to the Nottoway appear to be pretty solid. By the way my Sessums and Moore line married each other in Edgecombe county and my Moore line married my Etheridge line in that area too and this marriage is just 3 generations back from me. And if the records are correct when my grandparents married they merged our Nottoway lines again.
🙂 Linda
Linda,
I came upon this totally by accident..don’t even know now what I started looking for. There are Etheredge’s in this database..many..Caleb and Aaron and Nathan. etc. If you go to index at top..Elizabeth Deloach Allen married to Josiah Allen who was hung during the revolutionary war, married an Etheredge after being widowed. Josiah descends from Robert Allen II brother to my Joseph.
Robert II lived in Granville co NC, Born in Va, and Josiah moved to South Carolina. You may find some interesting things here.!;) 😉 Sue J
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=billallen47&id=I13985
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