(By way of background, recent DNA surveys have identified -- among present day Melungeons -- an unusually high number of genes associated with the Mediterranean, the Middle East and South/Central Asia. One intriguing theory is that their origins were in "mixed race" people from Spanish/Portuguese colonies, on what is now the south east coast of the US. The name is said to have the same roots as "melange". CF http://www.discover.com/may_03/featfrom.html DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 5 (May 2003) Where do we really come from? By Kathleen McGowan.)
> From: "Curtis Christy"[email address deleted]
> To: <AUS-CONVICTS-L at rootsweb.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 8:20 PM
* * * *
> I have no Australian ancestry at all. BUT I think there is a certain kind
> of relationship to be found between those of us who are descended from the
> people I come from (in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern North
> America)
> and those of you who are descended from British and Irish ancestors who
> were
> taken to Australia to serve sentences as transported convicts . . .
* * * *
> My people are the Melungeons. We are referred to as "tri-racial
> isolates" -- the ostensibly white descendants of probably at least one
> African [...] some Indian of the Southeast part of what is now the United
> States, and [generations] of whites marrying into those lines, making us
> virtually indistinguishable from most other white people . . . except for
> some characteristics that may pop up and demand explanation every
> generation
> or two. I, for example, have a kind of Sarcoidosis that is usually
> "reserved" for people of Mediterranean or African descent. I have no
> ancestry from anywhere near the Mediterranean since before the 1600's.
> But
> I do come from Melungeon lines, and although Melungeons have been very
> effective at hiding their heritage (through the use of the "family secret"
> no longer passed down), we know that one line in particular were still
> being
> referred to as "mulattos" in the mid 1800's.
* * * *
> Many Melungeon families have relied on the story
> that great-great-great grandpa was a "Portugee" as the
> easy "Caucasian" explanation for mixed heritage physical
> features of some family members. When recent genealogical and historical
> context
> work . . . and now even DNA studies . . . have revealed
> an African presence in our blood that is difficult to
> continue denying, some Melungeon descendants' denial goes WAY beyond the
> old
> "river in Africa" adage (i.e., "denial" ain't just a river in Africa!) .
> . . in fact, ANYWHERE but Africa seems to be the battle-cry of some
> detractors of the truth behind the well-accepted problem of the Melungeon
> family secret, why it has been so endemic in our lines, what drove it in
> case after case, and why the secret IN EVERY CASE ceased to be passed on
> the
> next generation [...] the same reason that found it
> necessary to live in the most remote, inaccessible areas of the
> Appalachians
> instead of remaining in North and South Carolina and Virginia as the laws
> affecting people of color began to change in the tide of development of
> chattel slavery in those colonies and then states.
* * * *
> So what's all this got to do with your Convict ancestors?
> >
> I suspect that the family secret was treated in much the same way:
> FORGOTTEN and failed to be passed down. Those ancestors did not
> anticipate
> YOU and your curiosity OR that there might ever be a
> great-great-grandchild
> who might actually be PROUD of the ancestor who was transported for
> essentially being of a somewhat different social or political
> point-of-view
> than those who ran Old Bailey and who meted out "justice" in a way now
> understood to be more criminal than those it punished.
* * * *
> I fully believe that some of the worst bigotry in the South is a
> reflection of self-loathing by those who feared the secret getting out so
> much that they became the most vehement race-haters in their respective
> regions . . . always the first to rally the cry against people of darker
> complexion moving their belongings through the valleys and down the
> hollows:
> "We don't want your kind around here Git!" . . . thus driving others less
> far removed from their African further into the brambles and brush, deeper
> into the obscurity of American mythology, making us less trusting of
> outsiders...
* * * *
> Curtis