It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
About the Melungeons
by Wayne Winkler
February 2004
A few generations ago, children in Tennessee, Virginia and surrounding areas were told, “If you don’t behave, the Melungeons will get you!” Many people grew up believing the Melungeons were simply an Appalachian version of the boogeyman – a fearsome and mysterious but mythical bit of folklore.
From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, occasional newspaper and magazine articles affirmed that the Melungeons were real and that they lived in isolation because of their mysterious ethnic heritage – presumed by non-Melungeons to be a mixture of white, black, and Indian.
In the past decade, books, magazines, and (especially) the Internet have fed an increasing interest in Melungeons. Genealogists have traced many of the families, DNA studies have offered some tantalizing hints, but the story of the Melungeons remains – to use the term most often employed by journalists over the years – “mysterious.”
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Like many of these tri-racial groups, the Melungeons are traditionally identified by family names. A few of the surnames are associated with the Melungeons include Collins, Gibson, Goins, Mullins, and Bowlin.
The Melungeons have historically been associated with the region along the Virginia-Tennessee border east of Cumberland Gap, with Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee, receiving most of the attention from journalists. Newspapers and magazines have found the Melungeons a fascinating topic since the 1840s, but the Melungeons have resented most of the publicity they have received over the years.
Most of the articles on the Melungeons speculated on the legends, folklore, and theories surrounding their ancestry.
Some of these legends and theories have suggested descent from Spanish or Portuguese explorers, from the “Lost Colonists” of Roanoke Island, from shipwrecked sailors or pirates of various nationalities, from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, or from ancient Phoenicians or Carthaginians.
More recent theories have proposed that the Melungeons descended from Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ancestors..."
End of excerpt. More:
http://www.melungeon.org/?BISKIT=4155008041&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10005
It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
also Greene & Vick, (which are my family names), Gore, Spurlock.