Showing posts with label melungeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label melungeon. Show all posts
Sunday, January 25, 2015
There are no Melungeon Diseases or Traits
The so-called Melungeon physical traits such as the Anatolian Knot and extra fingers and toes which have not been observed in any known Melungeon descendants are pure nonsense and deserve no credence at all.
Full Article Here:
http://none-of-these-diseases.blogspot.com/2009/07/questioning-existence-of-genetic.html
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Walk Toward the Sunset Again
I'm glad to see this play running once again, but would like some documentation for the statement that Melungeons couldn't own land or get an education in the mid-1900's. And for the statement that Chief Attakullakulla was a good friend to the Melungeons. JC
Emily Myers and Jesse Reed struggle with life in post-Civil War
Hancock County during “Walk Toward the Sunset.”
Walters State Community College brings a regional favorite to a new generation with the drama “Walk Towards the Sunset.” The play, written by Kermit Hunter, tells the story of the Melungeon people, a disenfranchised group centered in Hancock County.
Melungeons are a mixed-race group, which, even in the mid-1900s, were denied the right to own property or obtain an education.
The play ran as an outdoor drama for from 1969-1975 in Sneedville. Historian and author Wayne Winkler credits the play with creating a sense of pride among the Melungeon people.
“Even today, there are Melungeons who don’t want to admit or discuss their heritage. But those who do talk, do so openly and often loudly,” Winkler said.
Bringing the play back to life has been a welcome challenge for Walters State students, according to director Jerry Maloy, associate professor of music and theatre at Walters State. The cast includes several proud Melungeons (some of whom are cast as an angry mob) and many students have embraced the mystery surrounding the people.
“Every day, a student comes into class eager to share something new learned about the group or that someone they know has Melungeon roots,” Maloy shared. Maloy also has special praise for Adele McDonald, music director of the “Walk Toward the Sunset.”
The play has exposed students to the Melungeon world, but it has also given them a glimpse into the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian Nation. Native American Fred Bradley appears as Chief Atakullakulla, a friend of the Melungeon people.
The play is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 3, 8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 5 and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 6. Saturday night’s performance is part of “The Mildred Haun Festival: A Celebration of Appalachian Literature, Culture and Scholarship.” Hunter and Winkler, author of “Walking Toward the Sunset” will both be part of a panel discussion following this performance and tickets will be on a space-available basis. That performance begins at 8 p.m.
Tickets for other performances are $5. Reservations may be made by calling the Division of Humanities at (423) 585-6947.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Will Allen Dromgoole
Will Allen Dromgoole wrote the following articles about the Melungeons.
Land of the Malungeons
A Strange People
The Malungeons
The Malungeon Tree and It's Four Branches
Mysterious Tribe Known as the Malungeons
THE LAST OF THE MALUNGEONS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Early life and background
Will Allen Dromgoole was the last of several children born to Rebecca Mildred (Blanche) and John Easter Dromgoole in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.[1] Her paternal grandparents were Rev. Thomas and Mary Dromgoole. Her great-grandparents were Edward Dromgoole, a Scots-Irish trader from Sligo, Ireland, and his Cherokee wife Rebecca Walton. He married her after immigrating to the North American colonies.Dromgoole's parents sent her to the Clarksville Female Academy, where she graduated in 1876. She studied law with her father, but women were not allowed to become lawyers. She was appointed as staff to the state legislature, where she started working in 1883.
Career
Dromgoole was a prolific writer, publishing both prose and poetry. She was also a journalist for the Nashville American, a newspaper based in the Middle Tennessee city.She first published a story in Youth's Companion in 1887. It was about the Tennessee governor, Bob Taylor. She had a best-selling novel in 1911, The Island of the Beautiful.
Dromgoole taught school in Tennessee one year, and one year in Temple, Texas. There she founded the Waco Women's Press Club.[2] During World War I, Dromgoole was a warrant officer in the United States Naval Reserve. She lectured to sailors on patriotic topics.
Dromgoole wrote a series of articles on the Southeastern ethnic group known as the Melungeons, published in the Nashville Daily American (1890) and the Boston Arena (1891).[1][3] This historically mixed-race group was then living mostly in southeastern Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Her derogatory comments about them, while based more on hearsay than fact, expressed the biases about mountain people typical of her society and the period in which she was writing. Since the early 20th century, Melungeons have increasingly intermarried with European Americans and integrated into mainstream white society.[4]
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Melungeons Ways Are Passing
We are reposting some of the old Melungeon articles which appeared in
magazines and newspapers in order to give the reader an understanding of how
Melungeons were presented to the outside world in the past. We do not
necessarily agree with every statement. They are for educational purposes
only.
Melungeons Ways Are Passing
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
By Willard Yarbrough, April 26, 1972
Those left in Snake Hollow, Blackwater, Vardy and Mulberry - are few in number, Most have left the hills for jobs in cities far and near. And time is catching up with those remaining. In 1931 there were 40 Melungeon families living on Newman's Ridge above their ancestral home. Today, only two families remain on the steep ridges. Genealogist William P. Grohse Sr., who lives near Mullins, estimates there may be under 200 families left in the country.
Link to Jews Seen
Melungeon youth, just as others, are leaving rural America for jobs in towns and cities. Hancock's population of 12,000 in 1900 dropped to 6719 by 1970, according to the U. S. Census. Scholars and anthropologists and the just plain curious come into these hills in ever increasing numbers. They want to see and talk with hill people with such Melungeon family names as "Mullins, Collins, Goins, Gibbons, Miser, Bowlin and Bell. A young Israeli scholar came the other day and became convinced that these lovely olive-skinned people had Jewish ancestry and fled ages ago to escape persecution at home. He cited two things he said linked Melungeons with ancient Jews: Christianity - with the ever-present Cross - and the name Vardy. Meaning Uncertain "Vardy", he told chronicler Grohse, "stems from an Israeli word that means rose. So vardyman means 'man of roses'." Vardy Collins, born in 1766, was the first Melungeon to settle on the Blackwater. Grohse says he came around 1780 or a little later. His real name was Navarrh, but visitors to his mineral springs and hotel knew him by the shorter name, Vardy.
Melungeon - what does it mean?
The Melungeons themselves, God knows, don't refer to themselves as Melungeons. They don't know where the name came from, whether from the French word "melange" (mixture), the Afro-Portuguese "melungo" (shipmate) , or the Greek "melan" (black). Back at Howard Mullins' open fire, Mrs. Mullins, who is 72, said she never heard the word until five years ago when she read a book about "Melungeons." These hill people, now intermixed with non-Melungeon mates, simply know it's a bad word which their white neighbors once used to frighten their children: "Better be good or the Melungeons will get you!"
Accustomed to Hard Times
Melungeons have been angered for almost two centuries about two things: Strangers who call them by that name, so the Melungeons think, allude to "mixture" as having Negro blood. And writers of sensational Melungeon stories at times have ridiculed a sensitive, peaceful people. Back in 1840 there was an open insult to the Melungeon name in the state Legislature. "A West Tennessee Democrat," said Grohse, "argued with an East Tennessee Republican. The Democrat became so exasperated that he told the legislators 'Don't pay any attention to him; he's one of them East Tennessee Melungeons!'" One thing is certain. Melungeons are used to hard times and privation.
Mrs. Howard Mullins remembered the Depression days when she obtained a WPA job at the courthouse here as charwoman. "I walked eight miles across Newman's Ridge to Sneedville every day", she said. "I'd leave before daylight, work all day, and walk home after dark - with my dress tail likely as not frozen stiff where it touched the snow. And you know what I got for my first week's work? A check for $2.40!"
Still Was Guarded
Old-timers remember worse times, but they consider they were fortunate even then. Melungeon men and women many, many years ago worked all day in a farmer's fields just for the food they ate lunch. Melungeons always have been excellent moonshiners, though this is mostly in the past. Mrs. Mullins remembers when she and her first husband lived next door to Howard Mullins, who she later married. "Howard would fire up his still and I'd build up my fire under my washpot, so anybody going along the road would think I was washing. Neighbors helped each other. I guess I'd wash three or four times a week, or pretend to, and hang my clothes on the line to hid Howard's still from sight."
Quit Drinking at 90
How has Grandpap Mullins lived to be 110? "He was drunk most of his life," she said. "That might have helped preserve him. He quit drinking 20 years ago, but there were many times I'd have to take the mule and sled and find him passed out drunk up a hollow. "We both chew tobacco. I do because I don't want to smell his breath," she said, pointing to her now blind husband as he chewed Beechnut as if it were chewing gum. "He chews two packs a day." Mullins hasn't been out of Vardy for more than a year, his last venture being to Sneedville. He hasn't seen a doctor in years, either, and used only aspirin for medicine. Mullins lost his father at age 8. The father and another Melungeon argued at the Mullins moonshine still, Elbert Mullins losing the argument.
Howard Mullins, who has been chewing tobacco for 101 years, is the oldest child in his family. His mother was married three times. Howard's son, Burkett, 78, visits at times. Mrs. Mullins, who was a Collins, said she was born in a log house on the Ridge, that food was prepared on a dirt floor "because we had no money to buy lumber" and that the cabin had only one half-window for natural light.
Times Easier Now
Melungeons love to talk about hard times, because they're not so hard today. all homes I visited here recently had electricity and telephone. The Collinses, Mullinses and Mizers, along with the the others, find life easier on the valley floor. Their abandoned log cabins are along the creek banks or on the ridges, often the object of collectors. Painted houses either are rented or owned now, being taken over by the melungeons as others quit the Blackwater. Stone chimneys often are the only reminder of Melungeon life; some houses are gone.
Melungeons don't make gold coins any more, either. They used to mint them on the Ridge, take them into Sneedville to buy provisions - but they never said where they got the gold. Merchants welcomed the coins because they contained more pure gold than those from the U. S. Mint. Sneedville stores still buy ginseng or "sang from Melungeons who dug the roots for shipment to the Orient. Melungeons, such as Tilmon Hunt, in his 80s, love to hunt, and they eat what they bag. Tilmon displayed a fox squirrel he felled after an all-day hunt with his dog in the hills. And once Tilmon walked all the way home from Norton, Va., where he had a "paying job" years ago.
Age in Doubt
They'll really never know, these vanishing Americans, their true origin. Some aren't sure of their ages, either. Grohse, a German who settled in Vardy because he married the great-great-great- granddaughter of Vardy Collins, said the 1880 Census listed Howard Collins' age at that time as 7. if so, that would make him only 99 and not 10, the birthday being 1873. But Mullins says he is 110. Grohse likes to believe the Melungeons were of Portuguese or Spanish ancestry. And 1850 document shows Vardy Collins, then 86 owned $1500 worth of real estate and that his wife's name was Peggy. Rev. Arthur H. Taylor, a Presbyterian missionary here in 1916 and a Grohse relative, reported he had learned that Vardy Collins' wife was known as "Spanish Peggy".
Came From East Coast
Miss Martha Collins, a descendant of Vardy, and president of Citizens Bank of Sneedville, leans to the Phoenician theory - that these ancient mariners were lost from ships in the Mediterranean during a storm, and ended up on American shores. Monroe Collins, a tenant farmer at the foot of Bunches Trace near Treadway, doesn't gave a hoot about his people's origin. He'd rather pour water into groundhot holes along the creek, flushing his quarry, and convert the animal either into stew for dinner or a pet on a leash in his yard.
Mrs. Mattie Collins, 98, who lives across a creek reached by footbridge just outside Sneedville, knows only "my people came from across the waters." Sheriff Gene Collins says he isn't a Melungeon, that he has Cherokee Indian ancestry.
Scholars over the decades, and even more recently, seem rather convinced that Melungeons sprang from Mediterranean people. Some believe they were Moors, such as Shakespeare's Othello, fleeing the wars via the sea and settling in Portugal.
Had Land Grants
All agree that these olive-skinned people - comprised of beautiful women, fine-featured and erect males, and lovely children - migrated here from the East Coast, whether their beginning was from shipwreck following mutiny, survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, remnants of Hernando DeSoto's expedition in East Tennessee, or the very last of the Lost Tribes of Israel. They agree, too, that most came via North and South Carolina, in advance of the white man, many settling here with land grants following the Revolutionary War and given out by Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina.
Hancock County was in each of these states before final boundaries were drawn. The Melungeons, however, like many an American tradition, are passing, just as are some of their own traditions. Graveposts are disappearing from the cemeteries. Standing on Newman's Ridge and looking northward, Melungeon country is breath takeingly beautiful. This is so whether one looks to the left at the green valley of Little Sycamore or Snake Hollow, directly ahead toward Mulberry Gap, or to the right and the valley of the Blackwater and Vardy.
English names merely add to the mysterious legends of these hill people. One hill saying is that if a Mullins marries a Collins, their off spring is a Gibson. The Melungeons aren't so reticent anymore, or skeptical of strangers, and this is largely so because of Kermit Hunter's outdoor drama that's shown here each summer beginning July 4. "The Melungeon Story: Walk Toward the Sunset" is staged at the base of Newmans's Ridge in Sneedville. It depicts their travail and discrimination against them, from the time John Sevier found them in 1784. It tells how racial bars were broken with the marriage of a Sneedville white to a beautiful Melungeon lass.
These "people of free color" finally were permitted by the Legislature to vote! And famed author Jesse Stuart tells in his book, "Daughter of a Legend", how he dated a Melungeon when he was a student at LMU. Even today, however, Melungeons are lampooned. A recent magazine article said the drama was concocted to bilk money from tourists at a Melungeon trap that featured no Melungeons. How sad! Melungeons built the outdoor theater, helped stage the play, and performed in it. And Hancock Countians gave money and labor, signed notes for operating capital, and lost money in efforts to preserve the Melungeon culture and tradition.
reference:
http://www.ditmorecenter.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=891&sid=3c5408c4cc3578f25aac1e06ec42c89e
Monday, January 17, 2011
Journal of Genetic Genealogy
The Journal of Genetic Genealogy is an open access online journal presenting original work involving techniques for analyzing the results of genetic testing.
"The main emphasis of this journal will be to present a forum for articles that may not be appropriate for other established genetics journals since they may be based on datasets in which a statistically random sample cannot be guaranteed (I.e. Surname studies). Articles on individual surname studies are welcomed if they illustrate an unusual success story, present a new method of analysis, or would otherwise be of general interest to the genealogical community. Other topics might include insights into mutation rates, geographic patterns in genetic data, information that help to characterize haplogroups, and studies involving mtDNA. Beyond Y chromosomal and mtDNA topics, we encourage articles on new tools that may include X chromosome markers, and ancestrally informative autosomal markers."
This journal is intended for those who have studied genetic genealogy in some depth. You may find it interesting. It's a great FREE online source for learning more about DNA testing.
To visit the journal: Click Here.
Melungeon DNA testing and genetic genealogy: Click Here.
To visit the journal: Click Here.
Melungeon DNA testing and genetic genealogy: Click Here.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
DNA Working to Answer Old Questions
When I requested to administer the Core Melungeon DNA project with Family Tree DNA, July 25, 2005, Penny Ferguson and Janet Crain were also involved, and agreed to be co-administrators. Our objective was for the descendants of the Core families to use DNA and family genealogy to find their core Melungeons progenitors, their siblings and kinfolks, which could tell us who they were and where they came from. By finding matches in the core group they would know which core group of Collins, Gibson, Goins etc. their family was from. Many of the siblings and cousins of the core group did not migrate to this area, thus genealogy and DNA is used to find them. These tests; Y-paternal and mt-maternal would only show the progenitors’ original haplogroups, thus would not prove the Melungeons ethnic makeup (ethnicity).
Family Tree has the largest data base in the world and being notified of others you match sometimes adds to your family tree and may also plot the migration path of your ancestors. When folks view the Melungeon DNA public site they will sometimes see names not common to core Melungeon names, this is because DNA tests within the core group sometimes leads to families of interest when they match other surnames.
Our core Melungeon names were established by written records from men who lived in the days of the first known Melungeon settlement. No written records have been found of a Melungeon settlement existing prior to the Newman Ridge Blackwater group. No written document has presently been uncovered naming Melungin, Melungeons, or any such name prior to the 1813 minutes of Stony Creek Church.
The Stony Creek Church minutes is a real
Capt. L.M. Jarvis, an old citizen of Sneedville wrote in his 82nd year:
“These people were friendly to the Cherokees who came west with the white immigration from New River and Cumberland, Virginia, about the year 1790.The name Melungeon was given them on account of their color. I personally knew Vardy Collins, Solomon D. Collins, Shepard Gibson, Paul Bunch and Benjamin Bunch and many of the Goodmans, Moores, Williams and Sullivans, all of the very first settlers and noted men of these friendly Indians. In the Civil War most of the Melungeons went into the Union army and made good soldiers. Their Indian blood has about run out. They are growing white. They have been misrepresented by many writers. In former writings I have given their stations and stops on their way as they emigrated to this country with white people, one of which places was at the mouth of Stony Creek on Clinch River in Scott County, Virginia, where they built a fort and called it Ft. Blackmore after Col. Blackmore who was with them. When Daniel Boone was here hunting 1763-1767, these Melungeons were not here." This 1790 date for the migration would also include Grainger County formed 1796 from Hawkins and Claiborne County formed 1801 from Grainger and Hawkins. ( this letter from Jarvis used by Mrs. John Trotwood Moore in her August 12, 1942 response to a letter from Walter Plecker.)
In Jarvis article in Sneedville Times April 17, 1903, he was 71 years old. He does not name the Moores, Williams and Sullivans but adds James Collins, Mike Bolin, John Bolin and some not remembered.. He also adds “Their word is their bond. The first ones of them, who came to Hancock County, TN, then to Hawkins County and Claiborne, are well remembered by some of the present generation here now. And they left records to show these facts.”
The names we have listed on the core project are not set in stone. From the beginning of this DNA project we stated; "Others may be added as this research continues." I'm sure many who joined the core Melungeon DNA project have spent countless hours tracing the families they have matched in the Family Tree Data base. Everyone needs to be aware that Family Tree has the largest data base of any DNA testing company in the world and they notify you and the person you match. Your genealogy, either confirms those matches, or you try to correct your genealogy. Finding others you match sometimes adds ancestors you never knew existed. We have recently added Melungeon_Families to our DNA projects for related families and families of interest.
These core families migrated to Tennessee and southwest Virginia from North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Some who started this migration from the Pamunkey River area lived to own land on Newman Ridge, this migration journey was over 50 years. From Louisa and Hanover County to the Flat River 1750 to1767, then to Indian lands 1767 along the New River, then to Fort Blackmore 1800-1804 some left Stony Creek to Blackwater in 1801. The reason I list these places is because they always left a few behind.
I first visited the Flat River area in 1999 and stayed in Roxboro, county seat for Person County, North Carolina for two days and spent some time in the Flat River Baptist Church area. This church was established in 1750 and was the same denomination as those churches established along the Clinch River in 1800 such as Blackwater and Stony Creek. I did not find anyone who knew about the Melungeons. In the summer of 2010 I contacted the Person County Historical Society in hopes of finding core names such as Collins, Gibson, Bunch and Goins. A Mrs. Whitfield who was a life long member and had worked 35 years as a clerk in the court house was really helpful, although she had never heard of the Melungeons. She gave me the name of the Sappony Indian Chief and a Mr. Stewart who gave me some valuable information on his people and others, but as of yet we have not found any core names who remained in that area. We need to locate people with these core names who would volunteer for a DNA test, especially in Louisa and Hanover County, Virginia. Finding matches in this area could lead to a new discovery.
What do we mean by families of Interest? A good example is the Vardiman family who were neighbors to the Collins in the New River settlement; John Vardeman was on the same tax list with John Collins, who may be the father of Vardy, in Botetourt County, Virginia. This is also evident by family naming patterns. The name Letitia in the Vardeman and Vardiman Collins family. Vardy named his oldest son Morgan and a daughter Letitia which appears to come from Letitia (Evans) Morgan who was the mother of Elizabeth (Morgan) Vardeman. Elizabeth Morgan Vardeman was the wife of John Vardeman. To find this possible relation mtDNA tests would be needed since this is a maternal connection.
“ John Vardeman (John Vardeman II) married
(Elizabeth Betsy Morgan – a native of Wales) in south Carolina & soon
after removed & settled in Bedford Co. Va., & there (illegible) united with the
Baptists, & ever after continued religious professions – Abt. The year 1767
moved to New River; in 1777 removed to Clinch, & there forted at Shadrach
Whites’s, in the neighborhood of the Maiden Spring fork of Clinch – the Skeggs
– James & Henry, & Richards, all noted hunters - & their families, all forted at
the same time at White’s. ……”
Source: Lyman Copeland Draper Manuscripts, Kentucky Papers, Reel 12 C,
pages 63-?, Interview with Morgan Vardeman, son of John Vardeman Jr.,
conducted May 25-26th 1868, probably in Lincoln County, Kentucky.
There seems to be a great interest in the Melungeons ethnic mixtures on the Internet. The most popular being Native American. Descendants of the Collins and Gibson Families who migrated to Kentucky claim they were Saponia Indians, but some from the related Collins families who stayed in the Hancock County area favored Portuguese. There may have been unreasonable expectation that the Core Melungeon DNA Project would solve this question once and for all. DNA tests have not yet proven any of the above.
When the head Collins families on Newman Ridge along with the Minor family were charged for Illegal Voting in 1845, it was because the state claimed they were free colored and not allowed to vote. You can be sure in their defense they named their race and from reports of people who lived in that time period they claimed to be Portuguese.
From Sandra Keys Ivey dissertation was a letter written by J.G. Rhea to Martha Collins and I quote; “I knew when I was a boy Navarrh, or as he was called Vardy Collins was a fine old patriarch said to be of Portuguese nationality he settled on Blackwater Creek and owned Vardy Mineral Spring. I was at his home often with other boys. He was highly respected in his time and founded a Church at his home. He had sons and daughters, Alfred Collins, Morgan Collins, and Allen Collins were his sons. Etha Goins, Clarkie Biggs and Letitia Williams were his daughters.”
This message is not intended to speak for our other project Administrators; Janet Crain, Penny Ferguson, Roberta Estes and Kathy James, but to respond to negative opinions expressed by people who do not understand our Core Melungeon DNA program. We are hoping by the end of 2011 we will know more about our ancestors as this research continues. Jack Goins Administrator
Artifacts from Vardy Digital Library of Appalachia
Artifacts from Vardy, Hancock County,Tennessee
Katherine Vande Brake
Professor of English and Technical Communication
King College, Bristol, TN
The items from Vardy that E. W. King Library at King College contributes to the DLA collection restate the themes so clearly outlined in Michael Joslin's introductory essay to the digital library project--community, isolation, religion, literacy, and hard work. However, these photographs, records of the Vardy Presbyterian Church, and other documents also expand the collection in an important way. Many of the people who lived in the Vardy community were descendants of the Melungeons and can trace their family lines back to the first Melungeons in Tennessee--Vardiman Collins, Shepherd Gibson, and Irish Jim Mullins who came to take up land grants in what was then Hawkins County shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. So the Vardy artifacts provide an opportunity to see and understand how a significant Appalachian minority group lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century. They also show the effect of missionary work in the southern mountains.
Vardy, named after early settler Vardiman Collins, is a narrow valley between Powell Mountain and Newman's Ridge just north of Sneedville, Tennessee, the county seat of Hancock County. 
In the early twentieth century there were many families both farming in the valley and living on either Powell Mountain or Newman's Ridge. In many ways it was like other similar Applachian communities--isolated by geography but self-sufficient. People raised what they needed for food, bartered with their neighbors, built their homes from the lumber readily available on their land, worshiped in small churches they could walk to, worked together on house and barn raisings or homemade quilts, paid their taxes, and sent their young men off to war when the nation called for them. Selling timber, tobacco, and moonshine liquor were ways to raise cash. In fact one Melungeon woman, Mahala Collins Mullins, was famous for two things--the quality of her moonshine and her size.There was some history of trouble at the courthouse in Sneedville when certain valley residents had gone to vote in the 1840s. They were told they couldn't vote--it was against the law for "free persons of color." Records show that fines were levied. Other records show that the proud Melungeons refused to attend a segregated Negro school, instead they built a "subscription" school in their valley and hired their own teacher.
http://www.aca-dla.org/site-templates/Melungeons/Melungeons.html
Monday, January 10, 2011
Melungeon Myth: Machado-Joseph Disease
by Janet Crain
The following statement is an example of the kind of Melungeon Myths being found on the Internet. These statements are being used as an attempt to link Melungeons to non-existent Turkish ancestors and do not bear close scrutiny.
The following statement is an example of the kind of Melungeon Myths being found on the Internet. These statements are being used as an attempt to link Melungeons to non-existent Turkish ancestors and do not bear close scrutiny.
"Modern-day Melungeons have found an intriguing link between their peculiar diseases and those of eastern Mediterranean. Diseases identified in the Melungeon population include thallasemia, Behcet's Syndrome, Machado-Joseph(Azorean) Disease, sarcoidosis, and Familial Mediterranean Fever."
http://www.allempires.net/topic5701&OB=DESC.html
http://www.allempires.net/topic5701&OB=DESC.html
This blog will address the validity of each of these claims. Today we are taking a look at the Machado-Joseph (Azorean) Disease claim. In 2004, in spite of the statement by author Brent Kennedy that a half dozen Melungeon descendants in Tennessee had this rare and debilitating disease, Dr. Marie Boutte of the University of Nevada-Reno, who studies genetic diseases, particularly Machado-Joseph Disease, was not able to find a single case in a person of Melungeon descent anywhere. Her search was to continue and to date nothing more has been heard.
Machado−Joseph disease (MJD) is an autosomal dominant, multisystem neurodegenerative disorder involving predominantly cerebellar, pyramidal, extrapyramidal, motor neuron and oculomotor systems. Although it was first reported in families of Portuguese−Azorean descent, MJD has also been described in non−Azorean families from various countries, being one of the most common hereditary spinocerebellar degenerations. With the use of highly polymorphic microsatellite DNA polymorphisms, we have assigned the gene for MJD to the long arm of chromosome 14 (14q24.3−q32) by genetic linkage to microsatellite loci D14S55 and D14S48 (multipoint lod score Zmax=9.719).
What is Machado-Joseph Disease?
Machado-Joseph disease (MJD)-also called spinocerebellar ataxia type 3-is a rare hereditary ataxia. (Ataxia is a general term meaning lack of muscle control.) The disease is characterized by clumsiness and weakness in the arms and legs, spasticity, a staggering lurching gait easily mistaken for drunkenness, difficulty with speech and swallowing, involuntary eye movements, double vision, and frequent urination. Some patients have dystonia (sustained muscle contractions that cause twisting of the body and limbs, repetitive movements, abnormal postures, and/or rigidity) or symptoms similar to those of Parkinson's disease. Others have twitching of the face or tongue, or peculiar bulging eyes.
Machado-Joseph disease (MJD)-also called spinocerebellar ataxia type 3-is a rare hereditary ataxia. (Ataxia is a general term meaning lack of muscle control.) The disease is characterized by clumsiness and weakness in the arms and legs, spasticity, a staggering lurching gait easily mistaken for drunkenness, difficulty with speech and swallowing, involuntary eye movements, double vision, and frequent urination. Some patients have dystonia (sustained muscle contractions that cause twisting of the body and limbs, repetitive movements, abnormal postures, and/or rigidity) or symptoms similar to those of Parkinson's disease. Others have twitching of the face or tongue, or peculiar bulging eyes.
The severity of the disease is related to the age of onset, with earlier onset associated with a more severe form of the disease. Symptoms can begin any time between early adolescence and about 70 years of age. MJD is also a progressive disease, meaning that symptoms get worse with time. Life expectancy ranges from the mid-thirties for those with severe forms of MJD to a normal life expectancy for those with mild forms. For those who die early from the disease, the cause of death is often aspiration pneumonia.
The name, Machado-Joseph, comes from two families of Portuguese/Azorean descent who were among the first families described with the unique symptoms of the disease in the 1970s. The prevalence of the disease is still highest among people of Portuguese/Azorean descent. For immigrants of Portuguese ancestry in New England, the prevalence is around one in 4,000. The highest prevalence in the world, about one in 140, occurs on the small Azorean island of Flores. Recently, researchers have identified MJD in several family groups not of obvious Portuguese descent, including an African-American family from North Carolina, an Italian-American family, and several Japanese families. On a worldwide basis, MJD is the most prevalent autosomal dominant inherited form of ataxia, based on DNA studies.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/machado_joseph/detail_machado_joseph.htmDisclaimer:This article is not intended to provide medical advice or diagnosis. Consult a medical health professional if you think you might be suffering from a medical condition.
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