Imagine if your cardiologist was treating your heart condition with research from the 1950s or even the 1980s. Imagine if detectives, police, FBI etc., ignored all the tools found in the last 50-60 years, not using DNA, previous court records, etc., to investigate and pursue modern crimes.
Yet here we are in 2018 and we still have researchers/authors etc., using records, articles etc., that were written in the 1950s to 1990s.
DNA has proven the Charles City County, Virginia Gibsons, documented as having Native American roots share ancestors with Louisa, Scott and Lee Counties of Virginia, Orange, Wilkes, and Randolph Counties in North Carolina and into Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio etc.
The Collins DNA [Vardy, Amos, David, etc., of Wilkes County, North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee is found along the Savannah River in Georgia and South Carolina.
Where are the researchers looking into these families? Well they are still going by research of Henry Price from the fifties, blood studies and researchers of the 1960s, and ignoring all the research turned up in the last twenty years. All because it doesn't fit their narrative, their stories have been told, their books have been published and they are not going to change it., uh uh, no way.
When I first entered into researching the Melungeons back in late 1990 there were very few websites with any Melungeon research and at that time I put 10 years of research online and have added to it since. In 1997 I believed there were such things as Melungeon diseases, bumps, knots and squats. And yes I even believed the Melungeons were only found on Newman's Ridge.
There are researchers who will still try to convince you they are the only real Melungeons and the Ridge is the origin of these people despite the research of the last 10-20 years ago.
We have found the Croatan/Lumbee claimed they were known as Malungeons, long before they got to the Ridge. Court records show there was a town in Wilson County, Tennessee called Malungeon Town, in the 1850s, and Solomon Bolton, the Perkins, Shoemake, Goins etc., were also known as Melungeons in the 1850s.
We have stories of the 'mixed Indian' community of Malunjins living in Dothan, Alabama [Did we just find a DNA match to Newmans Ridge Gibsons] as early as 1800. There are at least a dozen references to the political Moulungeons of Virginia in the 1850-1860s. When are researchers, authors, etc., put down their copy and paste and do some research?
This letter from Hamilton McMillan was addressed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and was included in the 1890 Indian Population Report published by the Census Bureau. This letter was written before Dromgoole published her stories of the Melungeons of Newman's Ridge.
July 17, 1890
--Red Springs, North Carolina
Hamilton McMillan
'The Croatan tribe lives principaly in Robeson county, North Carolina, though there is quite a number of them settle in counties adjoining in North and South Carolina. In Sumter county, South Carolina, there is a branch of the tribe, and also in east Tennessee. In Macon county, North Carolina, there is another branch, settled there long ago. those living in east tennessee are called "Melungeons", a name also retained by them here, which is corruption of 'Melange', a name given them by early settlers (French), which means mixed.''
--Red Springs, North Carolina
Hamilton McMillan
'The Croatan tribe lives principaly in Robeson county, North Carolina, though there is quite a number of them settle in counties adjoining in North and South Carolina. In Sumter county, South Carolina, there is a branch of the tribe, and also in east Tennessee. In Macon county, North Carolina, there is another branch, settled there long ago. those living in east tennessee are called "Melungeons", a name also retained by them here, which is corruption of 'Melange', a name given them by early settlers (French), which means mixed.''
I can assure you Melungeon descendants all the Gibsons did not spring from Old Thomas and George Gibson of Orange County, North Carolina.
See Links Below
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THE AEGIS & INTELLIGENCER
Bel Air, Maryland
12 Jan 1870
MISCELLANEOUS
Recollection of the Olden Time
First Series...No.6.
To the Editors of the Aegis & Intellegencer:
"When I commenced my last letter, upon the subject of the young ladies in Bel Air [Harford County jp] and vicinity of the olden time, I imagined I would, before closing, work up all the raw material at my command; but I had progressed but a few sentences before one old acquaintance after another began to come up in memory, and I found my programme would be very incomplete without another letter. Hence with your privilege, I will refer to a few additional men and boys who lived in and around your village during the first quarter of the present century.
In speaking of legislators in a previous letter, I forgot to mention Jas. W. Williams, who lived on Deer Creek, not far from Husband's Tanyard. He was a tall, swarthy man, not unlike some of our "F.FV.'s," who take great pride in the very uncertain genealogy that turns the current of Pocahontas in their veins. (And just here let me say in particular, that if one-half of those who claim to have descended from the Indian princess are really such, Virginia in her most savage days, never had a more numerous tribe of malungeons than at present.) As before said, Mr. Williams very much resembled these claimants, with his erect form, elastic step, straight black hair, olive complexion and brilliant eye. ...."
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The Molungeons 1856-1869
THE EMASSEEES AND MALUNJINS
Malungeon Town
Melungeons of Hamilton County, Tennessee
Hamilton McMillan - 1890
