{"id":46599,"date":"2016-04-13T00:27:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T00:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46599"},"modified":"2016-04-13T00:27:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T00:27:02","slug":"string-of-pearls-exploring-the-melungeon-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46599","title":{"rendered":"String of Pearls: Exploring the Melungeon mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.swvatoday.com\/news\/smyth_county\/article_67372cf0-f2c9-11e5-bbff-7366e60a66fb.html\" target=\"_blank\">String of Pearls: Exploring the Melungeon mystery<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.swvatoday.com\" target=\"_blank\">SWVa Today<\/a><br \/>\nWytheville, Virginia<br \/>\n2016-03-29<\/p>\n<p><strong>Margaret Linford<\/strong>, President<br \/>\n<em>Smyth County Genealogical Society, Marion, Virginia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Judge Isaac Freeman spoke to the <a href=\"http:\/\/smythcountygs.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Smyth County Genealogical Society<\/a> on Tuesday, March 22, regarding the Melungeon people. He has been intrigued by this topic for many years. His father was best friends with local historian Goodridge Wilson, who often spoke of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=118\" target=\"_blank\">Melungeons<\/a>. Judge Freeman said he can remember him talking about which local families were part of this unique group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere have all the purebred Melungeons gone?\u201d This question was posed in an article many years ago. Judge Freeman laughed as he shared this question with our group. \u201cOf course,\u201d he said, \u201cthe answer to this question is that there is no such thing as a \u2018purebred\u2019 Melungeon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Who are the Melungeons? There is no simple answer to this question. In N. Brent Kennedy\u2019s book, \u201cThe Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America,\u201d he proposes that Turkish slaves were brought to America by Portuguese sailors. Once they arrived in America, they joined with female Cherokee Indians and other local tribes. This was the beginning of the \u201cMelungeons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most definitions of the Melungeons simply state that they are a \u201cmixed race people.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swvatoday.com\/news\/smyth_county\/article_67372cf0-f2c9-11e5-bbff-7366e60a66fb.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>String of Pearls: Exploring the Melungeon mystery SWVa Today Wytheville, Virginia 2016-03-29 Margaret Linford, President Smyth County Genealogical Society, Marion, Virginia Judge Isaac Freeman spoke to the Smyth County Genealogical Society on Tuesday, March 22, regarding the Melungeon people. He has been intrigued by this topic for many years. His father was best friends with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8,5113,20],"tags":[23548,23549,23547],"class_list":["post-46599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-triracial","category-usa","tag-margaret-linford","tag-smyth-county-genealogical-society","tag-swva-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46600,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46599\/revisions\/46600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}