Life in Possum Holler

Black Dutch as 19th Century Slur

2011-06-12T09:16:00.005-06:00

"'Black Dutch' As 19th Century Slur"
By James Pylant

In the article, "In Search of the Black Dutch," published in American Genealogy Magazine, several theories of the term’s origin were given, including Platte Dutch. [Read this in its entirety at http://www.genealogymagazine.com/blackdutch.html (Genealogy Magazine online site-CEB].

COPYRIGHT (James Pylant) © 2007. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.DO NOT POST OR PUBLISH WITHOUT PERMISSION

Melungeons and DNA Testing

2011-06-11T11:20:00.010-06:00

Melungeon Families of Interest - Goals

Roberta Estes has written two articles about the Melungeon DNA project for the Melungeon Historical Society newsletter. The articles, titled, "DNA Testing and the Melungeons - 2008" and "Melungeons and DNA - 2009" can be viewed at the two following links, respectively:
http://www.dnaexplain.com/Publications/PDFs/DNATestingandtheMelungeons9-10-08.pdf
http://www.dnaexplain.com/Publications/PDFs/MelungeonsandDNA6-21-09V2.pdf

Excerpted from:
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/familiesofinterest/default.aspx?section=goals
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South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to 'stray animals'

2010-02-07T23:52:00.003-06:00

South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to 'stray animals'

Posted: January 25th, 2010 11:36 AM ET
From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby
CNN Political Ticker (online)

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is running for governor this year.

(CNN) - South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer isn't backing away from controversial remarks he made over the weekend comparing needy people to "stray animals."

Bauer, who is one of several candidates seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said Friday that providing government food assistance to lower-income residents - things like food stamps or free school lunches - encourages a culture of dependence.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn, according to the Greenville News. "You know why? Because they breed."

"You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply," Bauer continued. "They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."
[emphasis added by CEB]

Bauer said recipients of government assistance should undergo drug testing or be forced to attend parent-teacher conferences, or else lose their benefits.His comments drew rebukes from rival candidates in both parties along with political and community leaders around the state. Responding to the uproar, Bauer told South Carolina reporters over the weekend that he could have chosen his words more carefully.
But he stood by his basic premise.

"Yes, I believe government is 'breeding a culture of dependency' which has grown out of control, and frankly, amounts to little more than socialism, paid for by hard-working, tax-paying families … against their wishes," Bauer said in an e-mail to supporters on Sunday.

Bauer wrote that the government has an obligation to help people in need, but, he said, "there's a big difference between being truly needy and truly lazy."
"We must find ways to instill some sense of responsibility or consequence into those who are now a part of the cycle of automatic hand-outs," he said in the e-mail. "Generational welfare is bad for the people on it and bad for the state of South Carolina."
Filed under: 2010 • Andre Bauer • South Carolina
308 Comments Permalink

chuck

January 25th, 2010 3:03 pm ET
How can anyone defend generation after generation after generation of welfare recipients. At some point you have to consider that we have bought ourselves a sour pickle.
Will

January 25th, 2010 3:03 pm ET
I'm so glad I work 50+ hours a week to pay the crack head down the street to have more children.

~~~~The above are just two of the voluminous comments following the artiticle, which you should read for your own edification. Why study history? is a quetion often asked. Has anybody out there heard of Eugenics? of Social Darwinisn? of Hitler? Are we doomed to play the same scenes throughout the play of history for want of a good education? I'm not a Christian but did not Jesus Christ himself reputedly state that "the poor will be with us always"? Do you suppose that he meant we should let them starve because of their own deficiencis? I don't THINK so. Comment by CEB

New History Lab: Using Material Culture to Recreate Early Mordern Kinship Networks and Political Alliences

2010-02-07T23:14:00.004-06:00

New History Lab: Using Material Culture to Recreate Early Mordern Kinship Networks and Political Alliences

by Cathryn Enis, 'Sources, Controversies, and Rediscovering Affective Significance', Saturday, 30 January 2010. From "The New History Lab," a blog sponsored by the University of Leicester, UK, written by a variety of authors. See list of past blogs and topic diagram for other items of interest.

In her research into relationships in Elizabethan gentry in Warwickshire, Cathryn has had to use material culture as evidence, rather than as illustration - an infact, she considers it a vital part of building a rich picture of identities and kinships. It is not just the traditional document that can be read as historical resource.

There are limits to what a document can represent. They may well be a rich resource of information, but they are always open to interpretation and they always leave out much. It may well be that standardised documents, such as wills as Cathryn illustrates, may tell us as much about generalised convention as about particularity and individual relationships.

The relationship which people have with material culture itself might be used to illuminate meanings that lie behind their documented use and giving of it. Objects are not simple things - rather, they are symbols, recognition of which a purely factual reading of documentation cannot always provide. {For the remainder, go to original post.}

A Momentary Diversion

2010-02-07T22:24:00.003-06:00

Haiku, Off the Cuff--In Pain

You all sliced me deep
I didn't mean to hurt
your loves scarred my soul

Religion in My Way

I feel Eternity in the Earth
I hear Life in its Sounds
I sense Reality in its Textures
I smell the Odors of the growing, grieving Being
I taste the Completeness it its Complexity
I touch the verdant Mass of growth and decay
I see the Beauty of its Change
And they revive me

The give me life
They gave me life
I will always live here, with the All
My essence will always remain in the Unity of all Being
All Plants
All Birds, Animals, Fish and Fowl
All humankind, all nature, all

All those I love
Or have ever loved or will love
Or have never known
Or never will have the chance to know

All is One
And we seek the All, the One
Our place amongst the One-ness
Even as we are the One-ness
We are Unity and Embrace the Unity

All is One and I am All.
With you

Copyrighted to prevent use as bad examples of writing. Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D. 7 February 2010

Goinstown, North Carolina (Melungeons)

2009-07-21T10:01:00.006-06:00

The Melungeon Historical Society: Goinstown, North Carolina

Monday, July 20, 2009

Goinstown, North Carolina
Rockingham & Stokes Counties
Notes on Goinstown by Professor G.C. Waldrep III

"Goinstown's history appears to begin in the 1770's with families (chiefly Gibsons and Goinses) moving in from what is usually called the "Flat River settlement" in what is now northern Durham Co. (then Orange Co.).

This was a small fragment of that former settlement, most of whose members ultimately wound up in east Tennessee and became the "Melungeons".

"The Goinstown community went from being legally "white" (more or less, up through about 1810) to "free colored" or "mulatto" (through most of the 19th century) to "Black" (circa 1880-1910s) to "Indian" (1910s to 1954) to "white" (finally, with the merging of the "Indian" Goinstown school into the white Stoneville system in 1954).

[Follow link for the rest of this article.]

Eugenics-Two New Books Reviewed

2009-07-11T02:40:00.001-06:00

H-Net Reviews

Victoria F. Nourse. In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. 240 pp. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-393-06529-9.

Paul A. Lombardo. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Photographs. xiv + 365 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8018-9010-9.

Reviewed by Lynne CurryPublished on H-Law (June, 2009)Commissioned by Christopher R. Waldrep

Intellectual Seduction: The Promise and Perils of Eugenics
In the first half of the twentieth century, a right to control one’s own body did not exist in the same sense that we take rather for granted today. The state enjoyed broad powers to infringe on individual rights in the name of protecting the public’s health and safety. While this application of the state’s “police powers” has a very long history in law, at the turn of the twentieth century changing medical understandings of the etiology of contagious diseases inspired new confidence that law could be employed in the service of preventing deadly epidemics, such as smallpox and diphtheria. In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that states can require individuals to be vaccinated, thereby establishing a crucial precedent for public health law and policy. It was within this context that eugenics, a pseudo-scientific movement advocating social control over human reproduction, took root and thrived. “Eugenics” is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of ideas, policies, and programs, within which varying weights were assigned to the relative influences of nature and nurture. Some eugenicists, analogizing from the germ theory of disease, argued that the United States faced an extreme risk of degeneracy due to the unchecked breeding of the physically, mentally, and morally unfit whose defective “germ plasm” threatened to undermine the health and welfare of future generations. Such fears were translated into state laws, founded on the Jacobson precedent, that mandated the sexual sterilization of the reproductively unworthy, with or without their consent--and often without their knowledge. In 1907, Indiana became the first state to mandate sterilization; by 1940, thirty states had enacted laws aimed at preventing criminals and the mentally “defective” from procreating. Legal challenges resulted in two landmark Supreme Court cases, Buck v. Bell (1927) and Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942). Both opinions remain well known and, for differing reasons, controversial today. Given the contemporary resurgence of scientific and popular interest in genetic explanations for a range of physical ailments and human behavior, both rulings are highly relevant as well. It is therefore most fortunate that two excellent and engaging books have arrived bringing renewed attention to these cases. {See rest of review essay at link.}

Native Americans in the Census, 1860-1890

2009-07-02T21:46:00.001-06:00

Native Americans in the Census, 1860-1890

If you're interested in which Indians were enumerated on the census, as well as when and where, this article will be of interest to you. It's from the Summer 2006, Vol. 38, No 2 issue of Prologue, published by the National Archives. It was written by James P. Collins. a volunteer staff aide at NARA.

History in black and white

2009-04-20T00:37:00.002-06:00

History in black and white • Lifestyle (www.HometownAnnapolis.com - The Capital)

Archivist finds Scottish roots
By THERESA WINSLOW, Staff Writer
Published 04/19/09

Chris Haley has always been interested in genealogy. But at least when it came to his father's side of the family, he figured things were pretty much covered thanks to his uncle, "Roots" author Alex Haley.

"It had been done," Chris, 46, said last week. "What would I prove that hadn't been proved before?"

How wrong he was. [Click link for entire story]

Kin and the Courts: Testimony of Kinship in Lawsuits of Angevin England

2009-04-15T01:37:00.001-06:00

Medievalists.net » Kin and the Courts: Testimony of Kinship in Lawsuits of Angevin England

Posted By Peter Konieczny on April 14, 2009
By Nathaniel L. Taylor
Haskins Society Journal, Vol. 15 (2005)

Synopsis: In the secular and ecclesiastical courts of Angevin England one finds, for the first time anywhere in Western Europe, genealogical narrative expressed within an increasingly formalized framework of judicial testimoney. In reviewing the variety of cases and proceedings from the era, one can discern three broard categories of lawsuit which hinge on genealogical testimony: marriage litigation, suits involving the inheritance of property, and suits challenging the inherited legal status of villeins. The present paper is limited to a review of the two more clearly defined types of litigation: marriage and villeinage. This preliminary qualitative study is based on a small sample of published cases from the Curia Regis Rolls in the regin of King John (for suits involving villeinage) and from the Select Please of the Court of Canterbury covering the whole thirteenth century (for marriage litigation), with additional reference to comparative material from other sources. After reviewing each type of case in turn, we will suggest common and divergent elements and note questions and directions for future research.

Read or download PDF of article.

Kinship and Family Relations [in Ancient Egypt]

2009-04-07T01:52:00.003-06:00

By Marcelo Campagno
Source: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology [via California eScholarship repository]

Full Citation:
Campagno, Marcelo, 2009, Kinship and Family Relations. In Elizabeth Frood, Willeke Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://repositories.cdlib.org/nelc/uee/1043

Entry link to PDF article

Excerpt from article:

The existence of terms like these that refer to larger kin groups is significant because it points toward the prominence of kinship in ancient Egyptian social organization (Campagno 2006). Kinship links were likely of great importance in the articulation of social ties both before and after the emergence of the state in the Nile Valley. In accordance with anthropological models of non-state societies, it can be hypothesized that, during Predynastic times, kinship constituted the main axis of social organization in village communities. Archaeological evidence seems to support this assumption: the grouping of tombs in clusters in cemeteries at various sites, such as Badari, Armant, Naqada, and Hierakonpolis, is similar to funerary practices known through ethnographic evidence, where such a distribution of burials reflects contemporaneous descent groups; the parallelism in the shapes of Predynastic tombs and houses (both were oval or rounded from the earliest times but included rectangular shapes from Naqada I on) may reflect a perception of continuity between the two domains, which in turn may suggest the perceived symbolic survival of the dead kin as members of the community; and indeed, the disposition of grave goods around the deceased could reflect notions of reciprocity, which are at the heart of kinship relations (Campagno 2000, 2002, 2003).

In Dynastic times, the state introduced a new mode of social organization based on the monopoly of coercion, but kinship continued to be a decisive factor in many social realms. Some pointers hint at its importance among the peasantry: the organization of agricultural tasks in family units (Eyre 1999: 52), practices involving cooperation (that is reciprocity) in the field labor, such as we see in tomb representations (discussed, for example, by Caminos 1990) or in the management of irrigation (Butzer 1976: 109 - 110), the (likely) prominent role of village elders in local decision-making (Moreno García 2001), the scant interference of the state in intra-community matters—all these suggest the importance of kinship logic in the articulation of social dynamics in peasant villages.

Alliance theory: Kinship Studies

2009-01-24T20:58:00.003-06:00

freesearchzone.com » Blog Archive » Alliance theory

A great summary of Claud Levi-Strauss's influence on kinship studies

Kissing Cousins

2009-01-21T20:59:00.002-06:00

Lab Notes : Kissing Cousins by Sharon Begley, posted 30 December 2008.

I keep teaching and lecturing about the fact that there is no good reason not to marry a cousin and, in fact, humankind has obviously been doing it since our origins. As this article mentions, if you want to know more about how this taboo works, read Martin Oppenheimer's Forbidden Realtives. Anybody who raises livestock knows that back-breeding, or breeding back into a common line, accentuates good genes more often than not if the gene line is fairly clear of obvious genetic defects.

What were Polynesian Mormons doing in 19th-century Utah?

2009-01-21T20:38:00.003-06:00

Have you ever heard of a group of Hawaaians converting to Mormonism and moving to Utah? Me neither. But there's a fascinating article about it in Archaeology magaine, November/December 2008,Vol. 61, No. 6: 55-59. The author is David Malakoff and the title of the article is: "Hawaiians of Skill Valley." You can read an abstract of the article at the magazine's site.

150 years of history - Olympia, Washington

2009-01-18T22:35:00.002-06:00

150 years of history - The Olympian

by John Dodge, published 18 January 2009, in The Olympian

Genealogists and historians need to remember that doing the history of a place can be just as significant, and as intriguing, as doing one's family. This is a great example of that.

Mentally Ill Folks Harder To Research

2009-01-18T22:23:00.003-06:00

Mentally Ill Folks Harder To Research

By Sharon Tate Moody, Tampa Tribune Coorespondent, 18 January 2009

I think Sharon was lucky to find the information she did about someone who was institutionalized. This has come up more than once in my own research and quite often seems to be a dead end--so many records for asylums are not available or extant. But you can never assume there is no information; often, as happened to Sharon, researchers are able to find some records on an "insane" person.

Also it helps to remember that the meaning of "insane" was different before modern times. A person who was committed until the middle of the 20th century could be retarded or have Alzheimers or post-partum depression, or be an alcoholic . . . or like my own great-grandfather, have pellegra, which often results in its victims having delusions. I also get the impression that someone, especially a female, who just didn't "act right" (according to her family or husband) might be labeled "insane."

So, as Sharon writes, these people are harder to research, not impossible.

Year Without a Summer; Wikipedia Entry

2009-01-18T22:12:00.002-06:00

Year Without a Summer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Year Without Summer

2009-01-18T22:06:00.002-06:00

Terre Haute News, Terre Haute, Indiana- TribStar.com by Tamie Dehler.

Most of our ancestors were farmers. When I research my ancestors and their communities, I try to find context for their lives. Try to imagine what life was like for our ancestors, trying to farm, in the growing seasons of 1816 and 1817. I know that about this time one of my family lines migrated further south. Did this crop-killing weather and the financial ramifications have anything to do with their decision to relocate and/or to start over? The article indicates the problems were pretty far south in the US; it would be great to find some comtemporary newspapers or journals to show us exactly where and how this extraordinary weather had an impact.

SEX AND SOCIETY: AMERICAN LAW

2008-12-27T18:02:00.002-06:00

SEX AND SOCIETY: AMERICAN LAW | Onlinepharmanews. Health News

Excerpt:
The bond of marriage is defined by the law and allows the legal reproduction of people in the form of the family. David Schneider, in his study of American kinship as a cultural system, has identified sexual intercourse as the key symbol of American kinship. This is so, in that sexual intercourse combines the two aspects of kinship as it is understood by Americans: "blood" (or substance) and code-for-conduct or law. Through intercourse, the archtypic relation in law, marriage, is expressed and relations in "blood" (child/parent) are created. The duality of relations in blood (or substance) and in code-for-conduct or law is predicated upon more general notions of nature and culture, respectively. In this frame, relations in law include not only those which are the explicit content of legislation but also relations based in lawlike, ordered sets of interactions. Schneider suggests that in American culture a similar structure of relations in "blood" or substance and relations in law underlies the cultural construction of nationality and religion as well as of kinship.

Know your family's medical history, know your risk

2008-12-14T23:05:00.003-06:00

OrlandoSentinel.com:
Linda Shrieves, Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer, December 9, 2008

Read entire article at link.

Excerpt: "The notion is so popular that the government has even gotten into the act. The U.S. Surgeon's General's Office has set up a Web site -- familyhistory.hhs.gov -- that helps people create their own medical family tree and put it in a format (a pedigree chart) that doctors can use."

The mysteries of DNA--Video

2008-12-14T21:19:00.002-06:00

MormonTimes - VIdeo: The mysteries of DNA: "In this 16-minute video presentation, Scott R. Woodward, executive director of Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, explains what DNA is, what it can teach us, what its weaknesses are and how it can be used to understand and track relationships between individuals and groups."

A Queer North Carolina Race (1894)

2008-12-14T20:55:00.003-06:00

From The Melungeon Historical Society

Read a transcript of an 1894 article in the New York Sun, describing a "queer race" or people in North Carolina--Melungeons.

A black and white connection through common ancestry - Bellevue Reporter

2008-12-14T20:19:00.002-06:00

A black and white connection through common ancestry - Bellevue Reporter

By LINDSAY LARIN, Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer, Nov 14 2008

After years of exchanging e-mails and long-distance phone calls, Norman J. Landerman-Moore and Ann Moore Black met face-to-face for the Western Region African American Conference held at the Bellevue South Stake Center building. The two are distant cousins, related through a common great-great-grandfather, Caleb Moore, of Ten-Mile, Meigs County, Tenn.

Sitting side by side, the newly aquatinted relatives share few similarities at first glance, but their connection runs deep, with common ancestry dating back to the 1600s. [Follow link for rest of article; also see photograph]

Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms

2008-12-08T22:03:00.003-06:00

Professor Peter Landstreet’s Sociology Courses » 2050A (2008-2009): "Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms"

Click on the link above (on the linked page from here) to go to 12-page PDF file of the following excellent synopsis of society and kinship terms, explanations, and definitions:

Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms

Contents
1. Kinship Terms (and Related)
2. Other Terms, Primarily Anthropological
3. Other Terms, Sociological or Common to Sociology and Anthropology
4. Societal Types

Tribal Society and Kinship

2008-12-08T21:57:00.002-06:00

Professor Peter Landstreet’s Sociology Courses » Some Conceptual Questions In Context of Tribal Society:

Excerpt:
"Let’s look for the social organization of kinship: You’ll find it:
A) in all the role relationships (e.g. husband-wife, mother-son, grandfather-granddaughter, etc.) that exist within families and which, taken together, “constitute” the families.
B) in kin relations of the more “extended” sort — cousin-cousin, aunt-nephew, etc.
C) in the organization of the lineage, and the clan (to use two common cases)."

Read entire article at link.

World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found

2008-11-23T16:57:00.002-06:00

Science Consciousness: World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found

[Main web site: Science Consciousness: Theory, Information and Research Articles.]

[Photo at web site with article, along with other links] Group burial of a 4,600-year-old nuclear family, with the children (a boy of 8-9 and a boy of 5-4 years) buried facing their parents(Credit: Image courtesy of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

The earliest evidence of a nuclear family, dating back to the Stone Age, has been uncovered by an international team of researchers, including experts from the University of Bristol. The researchers dated remains from four multiple burials discovered in Germany in 2005.The 4,600-year-old graves contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – an unusual practice in Neolithic culture.

One of the graves was found to contain a female, a male and two children. Using DNA analysis, the researchers established that the group consisted of a mother, father and their two sons aged 8-9 and 4-5 years: the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family in the world (so far).The burials, discovered and excavated at Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, were also unusual for the great care taken in the treatment of the dead.

The remains of thirteen individuals were found in total, all of whom had been interned simultaneously.Intriguingly, the arrangement of the dead seemed to mirror their relations in life. Several pairs of individuals were buried face-to-face with arms and hands interlinked in many cases. All the burials contained children ranging from newborns up to 10 years of age and adults of around 30 years or older. Interestingly, there were no adolescents or young adults.

Many showed injuries that indicated they were the victims of a violent raid. One female was found to have a stone projectile point embedded in one of her vertebra and another had skull fractures. Several bodies also had defence injuries to the forearms and hands.The researchers reconstruct this Stone Age tragedy using state-of-the-art genetics and isotope techniques, physical anthropology and archaeology.

Lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide said: "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe – to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far. Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities."

As well as establishing the biological relationships of the people buried at Eulau, the researchers were also able to shed light on their social organisation using strontium isotope analysis.

Hylke de Jong, a PhD student working on the Eulau graves at the University of Bristol said: "We measured strontium isotopes in their teeth to give us an indication of where these people spent their childhood. Strontium from the food you eat is incorporated into your teeth as they grow. We can relate the proportion of different strontium isotopes back to regions with different geology and identify the area where a person grew up."

Dr Alistair Pike, Head of Archaeology at the University of Bristol and co-Director of the project, continued: "The strontium analysis showed that the females spent their childhood in a different region from the males and children. This is an indication of exogamy (marrying out) and patrilocality (the females moving to the location of the males). Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities."The burials described in detail in the article are now on permanent display in the newly renovated Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany.

Journal reference:
1. Wolfgang Haak, Guido Brandt, Hylke N. de Jong, Christian Meyer, Robert Ganslmeier, Volker Heyd, Chris Hawkesworth, Alistair W. G. Pike, Harald Meller, and Kurt W. Alt. Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nov 17, 2008; 18226-18231 vol105 no.47Adapted from materials provided by University of Bristol. ScienceDaily

Kinship and Religion

2008-09-10T00:59:00.002-06:00

Anthropologists Develop New Approach To Explain Religious Behavior

This integrates well with my thesis about kinship and religion in my book and also is a perfect example of "fictive kinship," also explained in my book: Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier (Univeristy of Georgia Press, 2004). CEB

[Click on link for entire article]

... "Instead of studying religion by trying to measure unidentifiable beliefs in the supernatural, we looked at identifiable and observable behavior - the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims," said Craig T. Palmer, associate professor of anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science. "We noticed that communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent."

Palmer and Lyle B. Steadman, emeritus professor of human evolution and social change at Arizona State University, explored the supernatural claims in different forms of religion, including ancestor worship; totemism, the claim of kinship between people and a species or other object that serves as the emblem of a common ancestor; and shamanism, the claim that traditional religious leaders in kinship-based societies could communicate with their dead ancestors. They found that the clearest identifiable effect of religious behavior is the promotion of cooperative family-like social relationships, which include parent/child-like relationships between the individuals making and accepting the supernatural claims and sibling-like relationships among co-acceptors of those claims.

"Almost every religion in the world, including all tribal religions, use family kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister and child for fellow members," Steadman said. "They do this to encourage the kind of behavior found normally in families - where the most intense social relationships occur. Once people realize that observing the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims is how we actually identify religious behavior and religion, we can then propose explanations and hypotheses to account for why people have engaged in religious behavior in all known cultures."

Citation: Explain Religious Behavior." ScienceDaily 10 September 2008. Accessed 10 September 2008 .

Arkansas Cherokees Strive For Recognition

2008-08-31T23:01:00.001-06:00

Times Record, (Fort Smith, Arkansas) Tuesday, 26 August 2008, by Hicham Raache

In its quest to gain federal recognition, the Arkansas Cherokee Nation tribe visited Fort Smith Saturday and helped residents toward claiming their Cherokee heritage.Members of the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, aka Chickamauga Cherokee, met with community members and visitors from afar at Creekmore Park’s Azalea Room Saturday afternoon and advised them on how to become official members of the Cherokee Nation.

The Conway-based Chickamauga Cherokee has been striving since December 2007 to be officially recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, thus becoming Arkansas’ first federally recognized American Indianorganization, according to Principal Chief Harold Helton.“We need to prove we existed as a community,”

Helton said to the handfuls of community members in attendance. “We can’t (be recognized) just by filling out an application and getting an Indian identification card.”While they are currently in the process of petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs for tribal recognition, Chickamauga Cherokee members are traveling throughout the state and educating anyone who may have Cherokee ancestry on how to become a federally recognized Cherokee and gain benefits.

“If you have one drop of Cherokee blood, you’re Cherokee as far as I’m concerned,” Helton said.Guiding Cherokee descendants in registering with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Helton said, helps build his tribe’s base roll, which he said is based on all of the Cherokees who were in Arkansas in the 1800s. . . .

For information about the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, contact Smith at (501) 963-3713 or visit http://www.arkansascherokee.us/ on the Web. {For complete story, click on link]

Link sought to a Founding Father

2008-08-25T01:27:00.002-06:00

Link sought to a Founding Father - The Boston Globe: "

By Kyle Alspach, Globe Correspondent July 22, 2007

DOVER -- Bettye Kearse's ancestors had ties to President James Madison -- they were slaves owned by the Madison family. But she thinks there's more to the story.

She says that Madison fathered a child by one of those slaves, producing her family line.

Her assertion is a matter of much debate, and proof hasn't been found. Kearse, 64, of Dover, still believes it, certain there's truth in a story that has become part of her family's lore."

[Click on link for entire story.]

Also click on this article in the Seattle Times:

African American seeks to prove genetic link to James Madison
By Jonathan Mummolo
The Washington Post

Bettye Kearse hopes to prove she is a direct descendant of James Madison.

MONTPELIER STATION, Va. — Bettye Kearse stepped inside the mansion at Montpelier, President James Madison's estate in Virginia, and found the walls stripped bare. Rooms that were once opulently adorned have been deconstructed by archaeologists to reveal the slatted wooden frame holding together the home of one of the nation's premier architects. . . . [more at link.]

Your Family. Myths and Legends in Genealogy

2008-08-21T03:16:00.001-06:00

Your Family. Myths and Legends in Genealogy at Ancestor.com.

Last Updated: August 20th, 2008
Every family has the age old myth or the legend of the grandmother who was a “full blooded Indian princess”. In fact, the Native American tribes didn’t sport many “Indian Princesses, but almost every family has some degree of native American blood and all of them, by and large due to prejudices that used to, and in some cases, still do exist in this country, want that Native American blood to be something that is a bit more acceptable than just a “Native American woman who was part of the family”.

Admit it, Indian Princess sounds so much more acceptable and so much more romanticized than simply saying that great grandfather married a Navaho woman. In days past, having Native American blood in your family wasn’t quite as acceptable as it is in today’s society, so it was by and large hidden. The family may never had been told exactly what tribe the great grandmother came from, or if in fact she was Native.

Many families who believed their family to have native blood, particularly in areas such as Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginian are finding instead that the blood was of a race determined to be Melungeon, not the Native American they thought it was originally.

Some family legends aren’t truth at all, while others are in some cases, completely factual. Only research is going to help you determine which is which, but paying attention to them only makes sense. In most cases, legend or an old family tale has a grain of some kind of truth to it .

Legends about family history don’t normally get invented from no basis and aren’t usually completely invented from thin air. There will be somewhere in that legend a single grain of truth that you have to sift out of the dune of sand to get the real story for your family.
Some family legends you will hear as you work through your genealogy will be red flags to you however to dig a bit deeper and see if there is a grain of sand, or truth to the family legend or if it is in fact fallacy.

The more common things you might hear that should raise a flag for you will be:

• The Indian Princess Myth. Usually you’re going to hear Cherokee Indian Princess, but it may manifest itself as a Mayan Princess or any other tribe. Rest assured that it may be that there is Native American blood in the family, but Indian Princesses by and large don’t exist. In point of fact there were no tribes who actively made use of the feudal type system that was by and large a Caucasian invention, so the title Indian princess would not have been used. For the most part you’re going to find that this is always a myth, but do pay attention to it and dig around a bit to search for Native blood in your family history. Usually you are going to find it with this kind of legend in the family’s history. . . .

[Click link to read the rest of this post.]
Copyright © 2008 Ancestor.com
NOTE that this entire site has a great deal of valuable information for genealogists. At this point, I could not determine the name of the administrator for the site, however.

Wake Up and Smell the Armpit

2008-08-20T23:54:00.002-06:00

Science News / Ground Squirrels Use ‘armpit Effect’

By Susan Milius; Web edition: Wednesday, August 20th, 2008; SNOWBIRD, UTAH
Wake up and smell the armpit.

Ground squirrels use their own odors to reconstruct family relationships after hibernation.

That’s basically what Belding’s ground squirrels do in spring when hibernation has wiped out their memory of their society’s smells, says Jill Mateo of the University of Chicago. Using their own body odors as reference points, the ground squirrels figure out anew each year who’s kin and who’s not.

Self-sniffing as a guide to kinship has earned the nickname “armpit effect.” Biologists have theorized that plenty of animal species rely on their armpits when they do favors for kin or avoid relatives as mates. “There’s tantalizing evidence for the armpit effect in people,” Mateo says, but ruling out other possible explanations has been tricky in any species.

[Follow link for entire article.]

Public trust societies and kinship societies

2008-08-14T22:53:00.001-06:00

Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog

Public trust societies and kinship societies

Huntington famously argues that a clash of civilizations is underway, and locates it as a clash of religious traditions, Christianity and Islam. But it seems to me more correct to think of a clash, less of two universalist religious traditions, than of two fundamental organizational principles, kinship societies and those limited number of societies that have managed to establish, however incompletely, social organization on the basis of public trust that goes beyond ties of kinship. Those ‘public trust’ societies in one sense define modernity, but some of the core conditions predate modernity by centuries - monogamy and out-marriage, to start with.

Monogamy is a necessary, although obviously far from sufficient, condition of a society that is both egalitarian and free: a society in which a group of males has no real access to sexual reproduction is not an egalitarian society, by definition, nor a free one, and that inequality in reproductive access is tied to every other form of economic inequality. And that is to speak only of the men. From this standpoint, the fact that Christianity, for reasons that appear to me, at least, historically and even theologically quite contingent, favored both monogamy and out-marriage over cousin marriage, however much honored only in the breach, sets it apart as a form of social organization.

Modernity in some sense starts with those preconditions. The development of a social ethos that accepts the idea that individuals have fiduciary duties in the abstract, that do not pertain solely to those who are members of extended family groups - even where those extended family groups are as much or more socially, rather than genetically, defined - is what gives rise to the public trust necessary to modern Western society and the modern democratic state: that the state, and its officials, will treat people neutrally, without regard to kinship or other pre-modern markers of identity. Without that trust, the result is the form of the state, but an animating principle quite at odds with it. It is the marker of the rule of law and, it increasingly seems to me, the real line of division between societies today.

What gets the cultural cycle of public trust going in society? I have no idea but certainly it appears to be a long term cultural fact, rather than a short term political creation. Samuel Pepys, for example, wrote his diary at what appeared to be the beginning of a long term shift in English political culture: a time in which offices were still heritable and for sale, but also at a time when officials - in vital public positions such as the Royal Navy - were also beginning to be held to account for corruption and fraud. By the Industrial Revolution, the culture of the civil service was taking hold, and with it an ideal of neutrality in dealing with alternating governments and with the public. The very notion of “honor” and to whom it was owed had shifted.

The idea of equality before the law, in matters related to integrity of person, is a very old one and found widely across cultures. The idea of equality in the distribution of the largesse of state favor, and that it is dishonorable for me as a public official to favor me and mine over you and yours in the matter of state property and privilege, because it is a “public trust,” is a quite new one, and very limited in cultural scope. Yet it is the basis of legitimacy - even more the democracy - of the modern state worldwide. What we call a ‘failed state’, after all, is almost by definition that there is no concept of public trust, that it has been exhausted and depleted.

(Useful reading on this includes James Bowman, Honor; and Francis Fukuyama, Trust. Of course, if your view is that all societies are equally successful in their social and cultural arrangements, just different, but no one is better or worse, then none of this will make much sense.)

From: Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog
Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC, and a research fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, blogs on topics related to international laws of war, international law, related human rights topics, international NGOs, and the theory of the just war. (Everything here is first draft and subject to changing my mind.)

Nepotism (Kin Favoritism)

2008-08-09T22:09:00.002-06:00

Berry makes right call on nepotism - Opinion - Editorial - General - The Canberra Times [Australia]

Berry makes right call on nepotism
7/08/2008 12:00:00 AM

Nepotism, commonly defined as favouritism based on kinship, is a hardy perennial with deep and widespread roots. Considered as an extension to the concept of the selfish gene, there are compelling reasons why people favour family, clan or tribe over strangers. The family is, after all, the rock on which human society is built, and it behoves members to show it allegiance and advance its fortunes where possible.

Blood is thicker than water, but, intriguingly, nepotism does not always advance the long-term interests of the family. Many a family fortune has been squandered, or a dynasty rendered moribund, by those third- or fourth-generation scions who have proved unequal in skill, talent or temperament to the founders. Provided it is kept within the family firm or business, nepotism is considered by most right-thinking people as an acceptable if dubious practice, or at least as being nobody's business but the family's concerned. Where it occurs in public life, or in a business or corporation with a public shareholding, it is held in rather less esteem, if not downright hostility.

Many parliaments and legislatures, mindful of the fact that nepotism discredits entire institutions, have proscribed it in their codes of ethics or conduct. The ACT Legislative Assembly Members' code of conduct, for example, includes the warning under ''conduct as employers'' that ''Members should not appoint close relatives to positions in their own offices or any other place of employment where the Member's approval is required''. But like many such codes, the ACT's is non-binding, and though it exhorts sitting and former Members to respect the spirit of the code, some MLAs, including Bill Stefaniak and Vicki Dunne, have ignored it. Indeed, Labor MLA Mary Porter continues to employs her husband as her senior officer. And in a clear indication some MLAs consider the nepotism clause to be unnecessary if not a nuisance, an Assembly committee which conducted a recent review of the code (introduced in 2006) has recommended that the anti-nepotism clause be dropped altogether.

[The rest of the article available at link, but less about kinship than politics. Emphases added by CEB]

Wallace State professor Bob Davis helps trace Indian ancestors

2008-08-09T19:37:00.003-06:00

Wallace State professor Bob Davis helps trace Indian ancestors

Friday, August 08, 2008
BILL PLOTTNews staff writer

Bob Davis said he can almost guarantee who will show up for one of his Native American genealogy workshops.

"I get a lot of people who have a family story about a Cherokee princess," he said. "I believe most Southern black and white families have some Native American heritage, even if they don't have family stories about a Cherokee princess."

Davis is director of the Family and Regional History Program at Wallace State-Hanceville"It's purely mathematics," Davis said of his theory about Indian heritage. "Take Pocahontas. She had one grandchild who lived to adulthood, yet today more than 1 million people are descendants of hers. The genealogy's been thoroughly done on that."

Consequently, it's likely most Southerners whose ancestors were around before the United States forcibly moved Indians from their lands in the early to mid-1800s have some Indian heritage. . . .

[My favorite part] "People try to put the cart before the horse. Put Pocahontas back in the box until you've done your basic genealogical research. You've got to know who you're looking for because the Indian records are all indexed by personal names," he said.

[Follow link for entire article]

The importance of family ties in the Quran

2008-07-28T09:32:00.001-06:00

The importance of family ties in the Quran

...In Islam, the importance of maintaining family relations is paramount. The Holy Quran says, ''And be careful of [your duty to] God in whose name you demand [your rights] from one another, and [to] the ties of relationship; surely God is ever watchful over you!'' (4:1).... [Click on link for entire article]

Copyright © 2008, The Morning Call; TheMorningCall.com, 28 July 2008

How the States Got Their Shapes

2008-07-25T10:29:00.002-06:00

By Mr. Mark Stein

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.

How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

[Read more at link site]

Twin Sisters "Team," Have Triplets

2008-07-25T03:13:00.001-06:00

Twin Sisters "Team," Have Triplets, Husband Of One Of The Sisters Fertilized Eggs; One Sister Has Twins, The Other A Girl

CBS News: COLUMBIA, Mo., July 22, 2008; online from www.cbsnews.com, July 25, 2008.

If you think genealogical research on your pre-21st-century ancestors is complicated , just think how difficult researchers of the future are are going to find it! Triplets--biological triplets from the same biological mother and the same biological mother, but born six weeks apart from different uteri.

"'They're from the same batch of eggs, same batch of sperm, and so they are considered triplets -- they just have different birthdays,' Darla [the biological mother] continued," even though her sister acted as a surrogate "mother" for the fertilized eggs produced by Darla and her husband. Confused yet?

Darla and her husband will have to legally adopt the third triplet.

Read the entire link for the complete picture (if you can wrap your brain around it).

angels in marble: Marriage and its Purposes

2008-07-14T21:32:00.001-06:00

angels in marble: Marriage and its Purposes

Monday, 14 July 2008 by Hatfield Girl

Marriage and its Purposes
Contrary to romanticist vulgarisation, marriage does not either yield lifelong love and partnership, nor does it exclude such a relationship. Marriage is a contractual, social mechanism that povides the weft to the warp of kinship systems.

Italians, which really means Roman law, say always that we know who our mother is. Fathers are socially determined. Whatever web of kinship used to shape a society, men are invariably associated within it by social categorisation. Supposed to marry your mother's brother's son? Then that is where your husband (in the sense of recognized father of the familial descendant generation) will be located. Sometimes he might even be that, but more usually that is just a part of his socially ascribed role.

Essentially, groups of men exchange women (and, variously, associated property), in the interest of maintaining their command of that most fundamental economic good, human reproduction. The next generation is ultimate wealth.

Women resent this. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Dress it up any way you like, kinship groups, dominated by males, exchange women. They do so because exchange generates society, and from social order springs power that is institutionally embedded, rather than constantly reasserted by force of arms. . . . [Click link for remainder of blog entry]

What's wrong with marrying your cousin?

2008-07-06T16:25:00.001-06:00

What's wrong with marrying your cousin?: - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Surname

Slate.com, Posted Wednesday, April 10, 2002, at 5:32 PM ET

A new group is struggling for acceptance. The group is people who are married to their cousins. These people note that 20 percent of marriages around the world are between first cousins, that Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin married their first cousins, and that first-cousin marriage, while prohibited in half the United States, is legal in Canada and throughout Europe. Now a study by the National Society of Genetic Counselors says that having a child with your first cousin raises the risk of a significant birth defect from about 3-to-4 percent to about 4-to-7 percent. According to the authors, that difference isn't big enough to justify genetic testing of cousin couples, much less bans on cousin marriage. From this, the media have concluded that marrying your first cousin is "OK." Is it?

As Frame Game has argued before, topics such as sex with animals, dog-eating, and sex with cousins are never as simple as they're made out to be. You can't just say the practice in question is icky. You have to state a principle and think through its implications. Often, you have to change your opinions on related issues in order to honor that principle, or you have to throw out the principle and change your mind about the original question.

Is cousin marriage icky? Why? You can't appeal to Victorian morality; Queen Victoria married her first cousin. You can't appeal to the Bible; in the Bible, God commands marriages between first cousins. Instead, advocates of laws against cousin marriage appeal to science. To let cousins marry, they argue, is "to play Russian roulette with genetics." Many genetic diseases are caused by recessive genes. To get the disease, you have to get the bad gene from both parents. The greater the genetic similarity between your parents, the greater your chance of getting two copies of the bad gene.

But if that's your reason for banning cousin marriage, you've drilled into a mother lode of problems. Many cousin couples can't pass on genetic diseases, since they're infertile. Are you going to ban them from marrying? If not, maybe the 24 states that ban cousin marriage should follow the lead of the five states that allow it if either party is sterile. And if procreation between first cousins is too dangerous, why stop there? Six states ban marriage between first cousins once removed, i.e., marrying the son or daughter of your first cousin. Theoretically, that's half as risky as marrying your first cousin, in terms of increasing the probability of passing on a genetic disease to your kids. How about marriage between second cousins? Theoretically, that's one-fourth as risky. No state bans such marriages. Should we change that?

If your purpose is to prevent people with dangerous genes from marrying each other, why use a crude standard such as kinship? Why not test everybody for bad genes, ban marriage between carriers, and let cousins without bad genes marry each other? Banning cousin marriage keeps these couples in the closet, deterring them from seeking genetic screening, which would help them decide whether they could safely have kids. And as the NSGC study notes, the crude assumption that children of cousins will turn out badly leads to unnecessary abortions.

If you're afraid of mandatory genetic testing and you'd prefer to ban marriage among people in high-risk categories, why not start with fertile women over 40? And what about ethnicity? Cousin couples compare laws against cousin marriage to laws against interracial marriage. They've got it backward. Sickle-cell anemia runs in blacks. Tay-Sachs runs in Jews. The best way to curtail such diseases would be to ban marriages within ethnic groups.

The New York Times, CNN, and their journalistic brothers in arms have spun the increased risk found by the NSGC study as no big deal. Why is an increase of 50 to 100 percent no big deal? At worst, said one of the study's authors, when cousins procreate, "'93 percent of the time, nothing is going to happen." What about the other 7 percent? One doctor calculated from the study's findings that "almost 10,000 children will be stillborn or born with birth defects this year in the United States from first-cousin marriages. Not marrying a cousin is a more potent remedy than many of the medications we prescribe for heart attacks." Perhaps states should at least require cousins to get genetic counseling before marrying, as Maine has done.

The study's authors and its trumpeters in the media suffer from the congenital liberal conceit that science solves all moral questions. The authors instruct genetic counselors to focus on "validating feelings" and helping cousin couples "normalize" their relationships by explaining how common cousin marriages are. In the Times, USA Today, and other publications, the authors declare that laws against cousin marriage are baseless. According to headlines and TV reports, "science" has proved that cousin marriages are "OK." No, it hasn't. Science has deflated the scientific objections to cousin marriages. Moral problems remain.

Start with the problem of double first cousins. Suppose your mom and my mom are sisters. If cousin marriage is legal, you and I can marry. What if, in addition, your dad and my dad are brothers? It isn't that hard to imagine: Boy meets girl, girl's sister likes boy's family, girl's sister gets interested in boy's brother, both couples end up getting married. The first couple produces me; the second couple produces you. North Carolina and West Virginia explicitly prohibit me from marrying you, but 20 other states don't. Is that OK? Because if it is, bear in mind that you and I have as many genes in common as an uncle and niece do. If you and I can marry, why can't an uncle and an adult niece? Science says there's no difference.

Would you rather restrict marriage to ordinary first cousins? That won't get you out of the woods. First cousins have as many genes in common as a man and his half-brother's child do. We're talking Roger and Chelsea Clinton. If first cousins can marry, why can't Roger and Chelsea? Science says there's no difference.

If you still won't cry uncle, let's look at hard-core incest. Advocates of cousin marriage say they're against sex between siblings, but they can't explain why. Cousincouples.com, the Web site to which the NSGC study refers couples for support services, wants to keep Big Brother out of the bedroom. The site argues that "sexual relations between consenting adults [are] no one's business but their own." Aunt Kate, the site's advice columnist, tells a reader who's shacking up with her half brother that "if you are consenting adults there is no prohibition on simply enjoying your relationship." The site's "Statement of Principles" touts the "special intimacy" of romance between cousins: "The love and chemistry of cousins is typically astronomical as compared with other couples. If non-cousin couples would take the time to educate themselves, they would be jealous of cousin couples!" By that logic, wouldn't sibling couples be even better?

Yes, the risk of disease in offspring of sibling couples is much higher. But why couldn't genetic screening take care of that problem? As cousincouples.com points out, "Current studies indicate that cousin couples have a lower ratio of miscarriages—perhaps because body chemistry of cousins is more similar." Wouldn't the chance of miscarriage be even lower for siblings?

Many advocates of cousin marriage dismiss bans on the practice as racist. The authors of the NSGC study urge counselors to be "culturally respectful" of immigrant communities in which cousin marriage is "traditionally preferred." Why do these traditions promote cousin marriage? In some cases, because it promises "better treatment by in-laws" or because it keeps "goods and property within a family," says the study. That sounds more like pressure than freedom. Maybe we should worry more about whether people in these communities are free not to marry their cousins.

If cultural respect is your principle, how far do you carry it? According to the study, some African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures prefer marriages "between an uncle and niece." Should we respect those cultures by permitting those marriages? The question isn't just hypothetical: Minnesota law has a grandfather clause allowing uncle-niece marriages when "permitted by the established customs of aboriginal cultures." And what about people from Jewish or Christian traditions that stigmatize cousin marriage? Should their genetic counselors reflect that stigma?

As Frame Game found in the case of bestiality, the best argument against a questionable practice comes, inadvertently, from within it. In this case, the answer comes from Aunt Kate's advice column at cousincouples.com. "I tell almost ALL my correspondents who are considering expressing a more than casual affection for their cousin to remember a few important things," she writes. "The first one is that you already have a guaranteed, life long relationship that you will live with for a very long time. Don't mess it up."

This is the problem with sleeping with your cousin. You can move on from an ex-spouse or ex-lover, but there's no such thing as an ex-cousin. How are your parents and your ex's parents supposed to handle a nasty divorce or a breakup? How can they support their kids without antagonizing their siblings and their siblings' kids? You've wrecked your whole family. It isn't as bad as if you'd slept with a sibling, but it's a lot worse than if you'd slept with a friend or an officemate. We don't ban you from dating people at the office, but we don't tell you it's a great idea, either.

If you get into bed with your cousin, there's no need for Uncle Sam to throw you in jail. If it works out, great. If not, you'll find yourself in a jail no uncle will let you out of.

William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2064227/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

The way we present the topic of slavery to young people is all wrong

2008-07-02T02:59:00.001-06:00

Marc Aronson: Face the Facts - 7/1/2008 - School Library Journal

The way we present the topic of slavery to young people is all wrong
By Marc Aronson -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2008

Kinship and Human Society

2008-07-02T02:51:00.002-06:00

Research and Markets: Discover the Fundamental Questions About the Emergence of Human Society; DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b08325/early_human_kinshi) has announced the addition of the "Early Human Kinship" report to their offering.

Questions of 'kinship' have always been at the center of anthropology. Was there a connection between the beginnings of language and the beginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far did evolutionary selection favor gender and age as abstract principles for regulating social relations within and between ancient bands of our early ancestors? This book debates these and other fundamental questions about the emergence of human society.

Early Human Kinship brings together original studies from leading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. The volume takes as its starting point the evolutionary link between enlarged brain capacity and the ability of human ancestors to support increasingly large population groups. It then moves beyond traditional Darwinian questions to ask how far early humans might have organized these groups according to rules about mating and social reproduction that we would recognize today.

Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute, in conjunction with the British Academy, Early Human Kinship provides a major breakthrough in the debate over human evolution and the nature of society.

Key Topics Covered:
- Kinship and Material Culture: Archaeological Implications of the Human Global Diaspora: Clive Gamble (Royal Holloway College, University of London).

- Deep Roots of Kin - Developing the Evolutionary Perspective from Prehistory: John A. J. Gowlett (University of Liverpool).

- Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal: Chris Knight (University of East London).

- Alternating Birth Classes: A Note from Eastern Africa: Wendy James (University of Oxford).

- Tetradic Theory and the Origin of Human Kinship Systems: Nicholas J. Allen (University of Oxford).

- What Can Ethnography Tell us about Human Social Evolution: Bob Layton (University of Durham).

- Kinship in Biological Perspective: Robin Dunbar (University of Oxford).

- The Importance of Kinship in Monkey Society: Mandy Korstjens (University of Bournemouth).

- The Meaning and Relevance of Kinship in Great Apes: Julia Lehmann (University of Oxford).

- Grandmothering and Female Coalitions: A Basis for Matrilineal Priority?: Kit Opie and Camilla Power (both University of East London).

- A Phylogenetic Approach to the History of Cultural Practices: Laura Fortunato (University College London).

- Reconstructing Ancient Kinship in Africa: Christ Ehret (University of California at Los Angeles).

- The Co-evolution of Language and Kinship: Alan Barnard (University of Edinburgh).

- Epilogue: Reaching Across the Gaps: Hilary Callan (Royal Anthropological Institute, London).

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b08325/early_human_kinshi.

DNA of Criminals: Kinship Analysis - Should Close Relatives Be Profiled?

2008-06-22T16:52:00.001-06:00

From Suite101.com; link chain-Home » Science & Nature » Forensic Science » DNA & Trace Analysis » DNA of Criminals

DNA of Criminals: Kin Home » Science & Nature » Forensic Science » DNA & Trace Analysis » DNA of Criminals ship Analysis - Should Close Relatives Be Profiled?

© Karen Lotter
Jun 16, 2008

Should close relatives of criminals be DNA profiled or is it a violation of civil liberties? Will kinship analysis aid the criminal justice system or abuse human rights?

Earlier this year, in Science Daily, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, voiced his concerns over the ethics of a DNA database. One of the issues that concerned him was whether close relatives of criminals should be profiled. . . .

The rest of this article discusses the ethical ramifications of using DNA from innocent family members to convict criminals. It presents two prominent cases in which this was a successful strategy for law enforcement members.

Genealogists can adapt this type of strategy as well; when one doesn't have the DNA of the person of interest to one's research, one can find a "surrogate" by seeking DNA from other family members.

Louisiana Genealogical Journals

2008-06-22T16:29:00.001-06:00

The Advocate and Channel 2 WBRZ News at 2theadvocat.com (Baton Rouge, Louisiana); 2theadvocate.com:

Louisiana’s genealogy magazines outstanding
By DAMON VEACH
Special to Magazine; Published: Jun 22, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

"Louisiana has long been noted for some of the finest genealogical societies in the country, and these groups, in turn, each have outstanding publications that are included with membership fees. This is not only characteristically true for the larger groups, but even the smaller societies are coming up with some excellent and previously unpublished materials." . . .

A listing of journals and examples of articles from those journals are contained in the remainder of this article.

Loving v. Virginia and the Secret History of Race

2008-05-20T01:56:00.001-06:00

Loving v. Virginia and the Secret History of Race - New York Times
By BRENT STAPLES
Published: May 14, 2008

Americans born in the 21st century will shake their heads in disbelief on learning that 40 states once had laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The Supreme Court struck down the last of these statutes in the 1967 case of Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man who were arrested and banished from Virginia for the crime of being married.

{Click on link for remainder of article. Mildred Loving recently died.}

Bliss Broyard's book, One Drop

2008-04-17T16:11:00.001-06:00

Memoir explores roots, prejudices, and New Orleans' peculiar racial history.

by Susan Larson for the Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
October 22, 2007

A review of Bliss Broyard's book about the revelation that her famous father had been "passing" for white most of his life. She only found out the truth after his death. This article includes excerpts from an interview with Bliss Broyard.

Who knew you could find ethnicity in fingerprints?

2008-04-11T01:19:00.001-06:00

Discovery Channel :: News :: Da Vinci Fingerprint Reveals Arab Heritage?
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

Part of article (for full article, click on link)
. . . After scouring manuscripts and notebooks, the researchers found two other fingerprints that matched and completed the Ermine markings. The result was an entire fingertip, possibly belonging to the left forefinger.

Fingerprints are unique and don't change over a lifetime. Analysis of the skin's arches, loops and whorls — a science known as dermatoglyphics — has shown that there is a link between fingerprints and populations.

In the case of Leonardo's fingertip, patterns and ridges pointed to the Middle East, the researchers concluded.

"The fingerprint features patterns such as the central whorl that are dominant in the Middle East. About 60 percent of the Middle Eastern population display the same dermatoglyphic structure found in the fingerprint," Capasso said.

The discovery would support Vezzosi's claim that Leonardo's mother was not a local peasant girl as previously thought, but a Middle Eastern slave. . . .

Defining Mixed-Blood Indians

2008-04-10T23:09:00.001-06:00

Defining Mixed-Blood Indians

“A Rose by any other name is a Cactus”
~ Defining mixed-blood Indians in colonial Virginia and the Carolinas ~By Steven Pony Hill

Augusta County, VA (Orders 1773-1779)
19 AUG 1777….Nat, an Indian boy in the custody of Mary Greenlee who detains him as a slave complains that he is held in unlawful slavery. Commission to take depositions in Carolina or elsewhere.
17 SEP 1777….On the complaint of Nat an Indian or Mustee Boy who says he is to be set free from service of Mary Greenlee…nothing appeared to this Court but a bill of sale for ten pounds from one Sherwood Harris of Granville County, NC that through several assignments was made over to James Greenlee deceased, late husband to the said Mary….said Mulattoe or Indian Boy is a free man and no slave. ( Nat was most likely half-Indian, so therefore Mulatto or Mustee could be used interchangeably, use of these terms were influenced by the status of his servitude)

Charles City County, VA (Orders 1687-95)
DEC 1690….Thomas Mayo an Indian belonging to Jno. Evans is adjudged 14 years old.
Chesterfield County, VA (Orders 1767-71)
6 APR 1770…On motion of Sibbell, an Indian woman held in slavery by Joseph Ashbrooke, have leave to prosecute for her freedom in forma pauperis. -
Sibbell an Indian wench V. Joseph Ashbrooke, for pltf. To take deposition of Elizabeth Blankenship and Thomas Womack. -
Sybill a Mulatto V. Joseph Ashbrooke – dismissed. (Sibell was most likely less than full blooded Indian…she was described as Indian up to the point it was determined that she was legally a slave, then she was described as mulatto…use of the term is influenced by the status of her servitude)

NOTE: The above is just a fraction of the similar items posted at this site. Click on link for the rest of the data.

Project to safeguard Aboriginal secrets

2008-04-04T12:25:00.002-06:00

Project to safeguard Aboriginal secrets - 03 Apr 2008 - NZ Herald: World / International News:

Partial quotations [follow link for entire article]:

"Vines says that most Aborigines do not make wills, and that inheritances can be enmeshed in issues such as property and children.

'Is it common law property or native title? What happens to children and other relatives in a kinship system totally unlike that of Western society?

'Without a will, there is no executor to make decisions about disposal of the body and if there is a dispute, it has to go to court. 'That's a difficulty in itself.'

Vines says the Australian system reflects Western kinship structures, not the Aboriginal family structure, in which words indicating kinship often do not exactly match Australian legal meanings."

Clue to early Americans lies in origin of the feces | Seattle Times Newspaper

2008-04-04T10:29:00.002-06:00

Clue to early Americans lies in origin of the feces | Seattle Times Newspaper

Archaeologists have found 14,300-year-old fossilized feces in a cave in Oregon.

DNA analysis of the dried excrement shows the people who lived in the caves were closely related to modern Native Americans. Their genetic roots reach across the Bering Strait to Siberia and eastern Asia.

"These are probably the ancestors of some of the Native Americans living in America now," said Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at the University of Copenhagen.

[For full article, click on link.]

The Deliveryman: An Ill-Fitting Tongue

2008-04-04T10:04:00.002-06:00

The Deliveryman: An Ill-Fitting Tongue

Thursday, April 3, 2008
An Ill-Fitting Tongue

Today I attended a guest speaker seminar about radio and the internet and learned about Melungeons, an ethnic group of mixed-race people living in Appalachia. They are generally considered a tri-racial mix of European, African, and Native American descent, though hereditary lines vary from family to family. In his study, the researcher found that various Melungeon people living throughout the region and in diaspora had sort of found each other through the internet after a few of them had linked up while studying their genealogy. They have had several annual gatherings since.

This is an interesting group, certainly marginalized -- as the researcher put it, they were 'other' to the 'others,' spited even among the maligned Appalachian and Black populations. I realized as I looked them up this evening that I served my mission in a couple places with Melungeon populations. If I met any at the time, I wasn't aware of it.

[Continued on other topics]

Cyndie's Musings: William Goyens, Jr of Nacogdoches, TX

2008-04-04T09:58:00.002-06:00

William Goyens, Jr of Nacogdoches, TX

Cyndie discusses her ancestor William Goyens Jr and his family origins in North Carolina. She speculates on white versus black, but notes her family were free people of color and considered to be Croatan or Lumbee. She relates an interesting story of a NC cemetery, where some of her family are buried, stating that the bodies were buried in a standing up position. It looks as if some of her other posts may be quite interesting too.

Kinship Studies: New Book

2008-03-18T03:02:00.004-06:00

Kinship Studies

A new book entitled The Genius of Kinship: The Phenomenon of Human Kinship and the Global Diversity of Kinship Terminologies by German V. Dziebel; From Cambria Press, published on January 28, 2008.
You can purchase it on Amazon.com
(Uunfortunately, the price is $139.95! )
What’s new about this book?
+It is a new theory of human kinship
+It contains a new historiography of kinship studies that takes into account related disciplines
+It offers a new look at American Indian kinship systems
+It attempts to synthesize anthropology, linguistics and population genetics
+It critisizes the Out-of-Africa theory and outlines a new model of human origins and dispersals
+It is built on a new database and a new bibliography
+It exemplifies a new methodology of social sciences as applied to human origins
+It is a new step in the critique of anthropology
+It overcomes post-modernism
+It is not nostalgic
+It leads to a new vision of anthropology and reconciles it with its roots
+It is creative and optimistic

NOTE by CEB: I have not yet read this book. This information is from the author's site.
Another site has information about the author's theories and explains the book in more detail. Frankly, it sounds a little wacky to me, so, at this point, I'm going to wait to see if it gains any momentum in the anthropology world and what kind of reviews it gets.

Ariela Gross | "Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America

2008-03-17T17:05:00.003-06:00

Ariela Gross "Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America Law and History Review, 25.3 The History Cooperative

ABSTRACT: The history of race in the nineteenth-century United States is often told as a story of black and white in the South, and white and Indian in the West, with little attention to the intersection between black and Indian. This article explores the history of nineteenth-century America's "little races"—racially ambiguous communities of African, Indian, and European origin up and down the eastern seaboard. These communities came under increasing pressure in the years leading up to the Civil War and in its aftermath to fall on one side or the other of a black-white color line. Drawing on trial records of cases litigating the racial identity of the Melungeons of Tennessee, the Croatans/Lumbee of North Carolina, and the Narragansett of Rhode Island, this article looks at the differing paths these three groups took in the face of Jim Crow: the Melungeons claiming whiteness; the Croatans/Lumbee asserting Indian identity and rejecting association with blacks; the Narragansett asserting Indian identity without rejecting their African origins. Members of these communities found that they could achieve full citizenship in the U.S. polity only to the extent that they abandoned their self-governance and distanced themselves from people of African descent.

PowerPointers Blog

2008-02-28T21:55:00.004-06:00

A weblog about using Microsoft PowerPoint software to design effective presentations.

This blog is designed as a communication tool and a repository of training resources on the Microsoft PowerPoint software package and effective presentation design. I plan not only to discuss the mechanics of using the PowerPoint software, but also to discuss proper design techniques.

Quotations: Personal Favorites

2008-02-24T01:54:00.008-06:00

The central organizing principle in the discipline of genealogy is the reconstruction and analysis of kinship. ~ Carolyn Earle Billingsley
It is better to be liked for the true you, than to be loved for who people think you are.
It's better to BURN OUT than fade away . . .
So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key. ~ Eagles' song lyric
A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it. ~Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. ~ C.S. Lewis, (1898-1963)
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~ William James
The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous. ~Shana Alexander
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. ~ G. K. Chesterton
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind. ~ Marston Bates
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
History" isn’t just what happens in the past,” but what we choose to remember. ~Paraphrased from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in We’re No Angels, by Kathryn Harrison (2007)
If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ~ Michael Crichton, from "Ancestry Weekly Journal," 1 October 2007 (email newsletter)

2008-02-08T11:26:00.001-06:00

Third Cousins Have Greatest Number Of Offspring, Data From Iceland Shows

ScienceDaily (2008-02-08) -- Scientists have established a substantial and consistent positive correlation between the kinship of couples and the number of children and grandchildren they have. The study, which analyzes more than 200 years of deCODE's comprehensive genalogical data on the population of Iceland, shows that couples related at the level of third cousins have the greatest number of offspring. These new findings suggest that the recent and dramatic demographic shift experienced in Iceland -- from a rural society to a highly urbanized one -- may serve to slow population growth, as individuals are exposed to a much broader range of distantly related potential mates. ... > read full article

Iceland Shows." ScienceDaily 8 February 2008. Accessed 8 February 2008, online at .

Citation: "Iceland Shows." ScienceDaily 8 February 2008. Accessed online, 8 February 2008, at www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.htm.

Colon cancer risk traced to common ancestor

2008-01-06T01:28:00.001-06:00

Colon cancer risk traced to common ancestor | U.S. | Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - "A married couple who sailed to America from England around 1630 are the reason why thousands of people in the United States are at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer, researchers said on Wednesday.

Using a genetic fingerprint, a U.S. team traced back a so-called founder genetic mutation to the couple found among two large families currently living in Utah and New York."

Follow link to read full article.

Ethics in Publishing Family Histories

2008-01-06T01:23:00.001-06:00

Steve’s Genealogy Blog » Ethics in Publishing Family Histories

Not only is the article of interest, but the numerous comments by readers add much to the discussion of what can be published and what should be published. Do we continue to hide family secrets, because someone might be upset or ashamed, or do we publish the truth as we find and can document it? How do we deal with people who "steal" our research? Weighty questions and some great opinions, well expressed.

Melungeon Information at NativeAmericans.com

2007-12-23T01:49:00.001-06:00

Native Americans - Melungeon

This site has all kinds of links to a wide variety of information about Melungeons. For example:

ALHN Melungeon Webpage - This is the Melungeon information page for the American Local History Network.

Appalachian Quarterly Magazine, Wise County (VA) Historical Society- A magazine which regularly covers items on Melungeons. Link to the Melungeon Registry, which traces family histories of many Melungeon families. List of common Melungeon names.

Black Dutch - Six different meanings for the term Black Dutch or Black German.

Black Dutch and Irish, Melungeons, Moravians, Pennsylvania Dutch - Shirley Hornbeck's This and That Genealogy Tips, Genealogy Tips on Black Dutch and Irish, Melungeons, Moravians, Pennsylvania Dutch

Brent Kennedy's response to Virginia DeMarce: Kennedy defending his book after DeMarce wrote a review attacking it.

See this site for many more links to Melungeon data.

Wantabes and Outalucks: Searching for Indian Ancestors in Federal Records

2007-12-23T01:21:00.001-06:00

Article on Native American Research:
by Kent Carter Director, National Archives-Fort Worth Branch

This very in-depth article is a step-by-step explanation of how to research your Native American roots, complete with helpful links.

Black Dutch

2007-12-23T01:18:00.001-06:00

Shaking Your Family Tree, April 2, 1998

IN SEARCH OF THE BLACK DUTCH, by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.

"The so-called 'Black Dutch' have long been an enigma in American genealogy. Their descendants are widely reported, yet no authoritative definition exists for this intriguing term,'' James Pylant says in an article entitled "In Search of the Black Dutch,'' which appears in American Genealogy Magazine (Volume 12, No. 1).

Many readers of this periodical responded to a survey about their "Black Dutch'' ancestry as did several professional genealogists. The results were interesting but inconclusive. [Follow link for the rest of this article.]

The Croatan Indians of Sampson County, North Carolina. Their Origin and Racial Status. A Plea for Separate Schools

2007-12-22T17:15:00.001-06:00

George Edwin Butler, 1868-1941. The Croatan Indians of Sampson County, North Carolina. Their Origin and Racial Status. A Plea for Separate Schools: "The Croatan Indians of Sampson County, North Carolina. Their Origin and Racial Status. A Plea for Separate Schools:
Electronic Edition.

The digitalized book includes names of petitioners and the history of the Lumbee or Croatan Indians of this region.

This is from the web site: "Documenting the American South (DocSouth)," which includes ten thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture. Their homepage is located at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/

Many tribes left their mark on Indiana

2007-12-12T14:57:00.001-06:00

Terre Haute News, Terre Haute, Indiana- TribStar.com

By Tamie Dehler
Special to the Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Last week’s column discussed Indiana’s most influential Indian tribes, the Miami, Wea, and Piankashaw, as described in The Indian Tribes of North America, by John R. Swanton. Yet, there were other tribes that also left their mark in and on the state.

The Chippewa or Ojibwa was a tribe of the east coast and the Great Lakes area. Like the Miamis, they were part of the Algonquin linguistic group. In treaties made in 1795, 1817, and 1821, they relinquished their lands in Indiana to the whites. Their tribal name means “to roast until puckered,” and referred to the puckered seam in their moccasins.

The Delaware Indians were also of Algonquin stock. . . . [Read rest of article through link]

Another Way Kinship is Beneficial

2007-12-10T22:42:00.001-06:00

What Finnish Grandmothers Reveal about Human Evolution: Scientific American

Biologist Virpi Lummaa's work reveals that humans may be the best subject to study for evolutionary effects across generations
By David Biello

But it seems that grandfathers aren't as biologically helpful to the kinship group.

A study with fascinating conclusions.

A Surprise in Jim's Genes | The Genealogue

2007-12-10T01:27:00.001-06:00

James Watson—who helped discover the structure of DNA, and suggested recently that black people are genetically inferior to whites—has had his own genome sequenced.

An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%.

[Read the rest by clicking on link. I love the comment posted that says this reminds the commenter of a recent DNA "surprise" in her own family; she says we're going to have to start a new genealogy website: DenyMyDNA.com!]

I subscribe to this blog and often find great items in it. If you're interested in genealogy, I suggest you subscribe to receive a daily email from this blog at www.genealogue.com . . . it's free, of course.

Association of Professional Genealogists Press Release

2007-11-28T07:16:00.001-06:00

NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
27 NOVEMBER 2007

Contact: Kathleen W. Hinckley, CG, Executive Director, Association of Professional Genealogists; P.O. Box 350998, Westminster, CO 80035-0998; Phone 303-422-9371, fax 303-456-8825, e-mail admin@apgen.org. Prepared by: Marian Pierre-Louis, Information Officer, marianpl@FieldstoneHistoricResearch.com

Jake Gehring Elected APG President

Jake Gehring of Salt Lake City, Utah, has been elected president of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), the world's leading professional organization of family history and related professionals. He has been an APG board member since 2004 and vice-president since 2006. He will succeed Sharon Tate Moody, CG, of Sun City, Florida.

Gehring is a popular technology writer and lecturer and is employed with the Family & Church History Department of the LDS Church. Jake graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in genealogy/family history and is former editor of Genealogical Computing.

Gehring, reflecting on his upcoming tenure, said "APG has grown over the last twenty-five years into an active and dynamic organization. I believe 2008 will be an outstanding year for us in terms of solidifying value for our membership. We are seeing significant growth in the number and activity of local chapters, improvement in our journal and mailing list as education vehicles, and continued development of the APG website, all of which translate into more assistance for each of us in our daily genealogical work."

APG members also elected three members of the board's executive committee and nine of its 19 regional directors to two-year terms as well as two members to one-year terms on the nominating committee.

Laura G. Prescott of Brookline, New Hampshire, a professional researcher, writer, and speaker, was elected vice president of the nearly 2,000-member organization. Gordon Gray of Colorado Springs, Colorado, owner of GrayLine Group, a genealogical/ family history research business, was elected treasurer. Current APG Secretary John Vincent Wylie of Grand Prairie, Texas, was re-elected. His articles have been published in numerous genealogical publications including NGSQ and Genealogical Computing.

Nine regional director positions will be filled by: Suzanne Russo Adams, AG, of Utah and Karen Wallace Steely, of Washington, Region 1 (Western U.S.); Timothy Pinnick, of Illinois, and Barbara Brixey Wylie, of Texas, Region 2 (Midwest); Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D, of Arkansas, and Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D, FASG, CG, CGL, of Virginia, from Region 3 (Southeast); Pamela Eagleson, CG, of Maine and Maureen A. Taylor, of Massachusetts, Region 4 (Northeast); and Cornelia Schrader Muggenthaler of Italy was returned to office in International Region B.

Janet Irwin, MLS, of Oregon, and Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, of Minnesota, were elected to one-year terms on the nominations committee.

The Association of Professional Genealogists (http://www.apgen.org/), established in 1979, represents professional genealogists and people in related professions who do professional-quality work for hire or for themselves.

Artifacts from Vardy, Hancock County, Tennessee

2007-11-12T06:01:00.001-06:00

By Katherine Vande Brake, Professor of English and Technical Communication, King College, Bristol, Tennessee. From the Digital Library of Appalachia web site; accessed 12 November 2007.

This site contains information about the home county of Melungeons: history, stories, and photographs.

Author Bliss Broyard explores the color line

2007-11-07T12:13:00.001-06:00

"Her father's hidden past: A color line obscured Bliss Broyard's heritage"
The Boston Globe , by By David Mehegan, Globe Staff, November 6, 2007

Excerpt (click on link for full article):
Now Bliss Broyard, 41, after years of research and personal exploration, has told the story from the family perspective in "One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets." While the book is "about" Anatole Broyard, his family's history, and the cultural and racial history of south Louisiana, its main subject is the emotional landscape around the color line, which Bliss Broyard never expected to explore.

Racial mixtures of the Upper South

2007-10-29T13:24:00.001-06:00

"Our Legacy:Racial mixtures of the Upper South," Columnists - HometownAnnapolis.com, By Janice Hayes-Williams, For The Capital. Published October 25, 2007. Follow link for full article.

Excerpt:
The ethnicity of many blacks in the United States and in particular Maryland can be tied to the Indian population that was removed from this area hundreds of years ago. Relations between blacks and Indians can be traced back to the 1600's with the emergence of slavery.

Excerpt:
The relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans began somewhat agreeable but diminished in less than 200 years. Because of the intermarriages of Native Americans with whites and blacks, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century racial categories evolved.

Excerpt:
In Maryland counties such as St. Mary's, Charles, Prince George's, and Calvert there were large numbers of individuals that were not of two races but three. The Catholics kept very good records and called these people Indians, partly because of were they lived. Anthropologists called them "Wesort's;" census enumerators called them mulattoes and today sociologists call them "Tri-Racial Isolates." During the 18th and 19th centuries these individuals in Maryland were also called "Free People of Color," "Free Negro" or mulatto.

Throughout the South there are numerous tri-racial isolate groups formerly enumerated as mulattoes; they are: "Brass Ankles" of South Carolina, "Guineas" of West Virginia, "Haliwas" and "Lumbees" of North Carolina, "Melungeons" of Tennessee and Kentucky, "Red Bones" of South Carolina and Louisiana and "Turks" also of South Carolina.

A few summers ago on a trip to Point Lookout here in Maryland, I had the opportunity to see one of the original muster rolls of soldiers who came from Blackistone Island in St Mary's County, now called Clements's Island. Most interesting was the fact that the men who came from Blackistone Island to fight during the Civil War listed their race not as White, Negro or mulatto, but "Griffe." Because many of these men had the last name Blackistone, I called Mr. Blackstone here in Annapolis and asked him "What in the world is a Griffe?"

He explained without hesitation that these were the people that inhabited Blackistone Island for 200 years and were of three races - European, African and Indian, a tri-racial isolate. Mr. Blackstone is a descendant of these people.

Indian tribes expel members

2007-10-27T15:23:00.001-06:00

See link for full article, focusing on Narragansett Indians in Rhode Island, but also discussing other Indian tribes who have recently been purging members from tribal lists.

Quotes from article:

Champlain and his extended family are among thousands of people removed from American Indian tribes in recent years, often amid tribal squabbles or when a casino comes to town. In Rhode Island, the Narragansetts' removal of about 140 of roughly 2,400 members has become an issue in Saturday's election for the tribe's chief sachem, or leader. . . .

There are 562 federally recognized tribes, and tribal governments are not required to report citizenship decisions. But the number is in the thousands.

Can DNA Determine Indian Ancestry?

2007-10-18T18:25:00.000-06:00

Manataka American Indian Council
by By Kim TallBear, Phd., Associate, Red Nation Consulting

Kim TallBear is an associate with Red Nation Consulting and a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota. She specializes in tribal program development and strategic planning and has worked with many U.S. tribes, tribal organizations, and federal agencies. She is a Ph.D. student in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on racial formation among American Indians, specifically how DNA and blood influence identity and community belonging. She is a 2003 recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

~~~~~~~~

Excerpts (first and last paragraphs):

There is talk in Indian country about how DNA can decide tribal enrollment and prove American Indian ancestry. Some of this is coming from DNA testing companies anxious to sell costly services to tribes. . . .

Self-determined tribes struggling to control identities and resources must make decisions about the risks and benefits of DNA testing. Some tribal decision-makers display healthy skepticism as they talk about the complicated nature of identity, family, and community. Biological connection is not the sole important factor in determining who belongs. Cultural knowledge and connection to a land base are also valued. Many Indian people are also concerned about loss of privacy and control if outsiders hold biological samples. Other tribal decision-makers have expressed interest in DNA testing and still others need more information.

Unfortunately, there is no single source for information on DNA technologies and tribes. Nonprofit organizations and academic resources used in conjunction are a good start. The Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG) located in Cambridge, Mass. can provide general information about genetics (www.gene-watch.org). The Genetics and Identity Project at the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics has on-line information on genetics and American Indian Identity available at Gentics and Identity. IPCB’s paper on DNA and Native American identity and other documents on genetics are available at Identity. IPCB is well-networked on genetics issues affecting indigenous peoples and can help tribes find technical assistance.

History rewritten on Cherokee demise - LiveScience - MSNBC.com

2007-09-22T15:37:00.000-06:00

History rewritten on Cherokee demise - LiveScience - MSNBC.com: External pressures, not lack of natural resources, led to tribe's collapse

By Heather Whipps

A slow, lethal combination of external pressures including warfare, rather than a lack of natural resources, led to the demise of the Cherokee Indians, two new studies suggest.

The date of the Cherokee society's collapse is often cited as 1785, when several tribes signed the Treaty of Hopewell and came under the jurisdiction of the new United States of America. Resource scarcity was the major factor in the dissolution, many historians have thought, based on an eyewitness narrative of sparse settlement patterns.

But the Cherokee of the Southeastern United States actually had plenty of land, crops and animals to go around, the new land-usage research indicates. The collapse was more likely instigated by a series of events that occurred over a period of a few decades, said University of Georgia anthropologist Ted Gragson.

[Follow link for remainder of story]

My Melungeon heritage : a story of life on Newman's Ridge [WorldCat.org]

2007-09-21T02:13:00.000-06:00

My Melungeon heritage : a story of life on Newman's Ridge [WorldCat.org]

"Sumter County, S.C. Turks"

2007-09-16T22:55:00.001-06:00

U.S. JOURNAL: "SUMTER COUNTY, S.C. TURKS," The New Yorker

By Calvin Trillin
Published March 8, 1969, p. 104
Abstract from The New Yorker Online Archives:

U.S. JOURNAL about a group of people living in Sumter County, S.C. called Turks. They are not really Turks. Throughout the Southeast there have always been communities of people who constitute a third race, usually discriminated against by whites and almost always segregating themselves from Negroes. They are dark-skinned people of mysterious origin. Most of the groups apparently descend from remnants of Indian tribes that long ago intermarried with whites and with freed or escaped slaves. "The men are mostly of the small-farmer or tenant class and most of them are poor," an article in the Columbia "State" said in 1928. Every Truk is certain that he is white and certain that his neighbors are ready to believe that he is part Negro. The founders of this community were 2 men who fought with Gen. Thomas Sumter during the American Revolution and were given land by the Genl. around his plantation. They were a Frenchman called Scott and Joseph Benenhaley, who is usually identified as a Moor or an Arab. The Turks were discriminated against and segregated until a few years after World War II. At first they succeeded in getting their children admitted into Hillcrest, the local white high school; later into grade school. Eventuall most local white students went to a private high school, but some white students, not local, from Shaw Air Force Base, do go to it.

Lisa Alther Home Page

2007-08-19T23:38:00.000-06:00

Lisa Alther Home Page

Author of:
Kinfolks--Falling Off the Family Tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors

WGBH Forum Network: Book Note

Kinfolks Amazon Link

Editorial Reviews from Amazon (at link above):
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Trading on the title of her first novel, the best-selling Kinflicks(1976), Alther presents Kinfolks, her first work of nonfiction, a wise, funny inquiry into the complexities of inheritance. A Tennessean with a New Yorker mother and a Virginian father, Alther grew up feeling like the Civil War incarnate and was mystified by her Cadillac-driving grandmother, who, for all her pride in her blueblood Virginia heritage, refused to contact her back-home relatives. But what induces Alther to turn genealogical sleuth is a cousin's declaration that he is a Melungeon. Melungeons are reputedly multiracial Appalachians sometimes burdened with six-fingered hands and a reputation for the evil eye. Controversial theories suggest African, Portuguese, Turkish, and/or Native American descent. High-spirited Alther's curiosity sends her to dusty courthouse archives, Native American casinos, and locales across Europe and Turkey, and her findings enable her to bring historical Appalachia into focus as a landing place for refugees from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Drolly hilarious and incisive, Alther attempts to decode family secrets, gets to know self-declared Melungeons, and considers her unexpected ties to Pocahontas, ultimately presenting a provocative take on the South's obsession with skin color. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Library Journal, April 1, 2007
"Lively, engaging . . . The journey is a delight, full of arch observations . . . Of more than just regional interest."

Book Description
In this dazzling, hilarious memoir, best-selling author of Kinflicks Lisa Alther chronicles her search for the missing--often mysterious--branches of her family tree.
Most of us grow up thinking we know who we are and where we come from. Lisa Alther's mother hailed from New York, her father from Virginia, and every day they reenacted the Civil War at home in East Tennessee. Then one night a grizzled babysitter with brown teeth told Lisa about the Melungeons: six-fingered child-snatchers who hid in cliff caves outside town. Forgetting about these creepy kidnappers until she had a daughter of her own, Lisa learned that the Melungeons were actually a group of dark-skinned people--some with extra thumbs--living in isolated pockets in the South. But who were they? Where did they come from? Were they the descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, or of shipwrecked Portuguese or Turkish sailors? Or were they the children of European frontiersmen, African slaves, and Native Americans? Theories abounded, but no one seemed to know for sure.

Learning that a cousin had had his extra thumbs removed, Lisa set out to discover who these mysterious Melungeons really were and why her grandmother wouldn't let her visit their Virginia relatives. Were there Melungeons in the family tree? Lisa assembled a hoard of clues over the years, but DNA testing finally offered answers.

Part sidesplitting travelogue, part how--and how not--to climb your family tree, Kinfolks shimmers with wicked humor, illustrating just how wacky and wonderful our human family really is.

Driving Yourself Nuts Over Six Fingered Kinfolks

2007-08-19T23:34:00.000-06:00

Driving Yourself Nuts Over Six Fingered Kinfolks

What should you do when your baby sitter threatens you with the six- fingered boogeyman? Look for him, of course. That's what Lisa Alther does to overcome her "chronic identity crisis" in a delightfully wicked journey of discovery of self, in Kinfolks - Falling Off the Family Tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors.

This memoir is interesting from three perspectives. One, it underscores our obsession with race. We need to know who we are in terms of what we are. The other is our need to belong, to claim identity in terms of a particular mix of ethnicity and concrete "mother" group(s), even when the author's self-described history dates back several generations in this country. Lastly, this book is a quick but intriguing read of the lost history of several groups of people who lived, were brought or came to the southeastern United States.

Who are the Melungeons? As Alther herself says toward the end of the book, "After a series of tests, I learned that I'd been walking around for six decades in a body constructed by DNA originating in Central Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. This in addition to the contributions from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, and Native America, which I already knew about through conventional genealogical methods.

For weeks after receiving these results, I wandered around in a daze, humming "We Are the World." A lifelong suspicion that I fit nowhere turned out not to be just idle paranoia. But once the reality of my panglobal identity sank in, I realized that I'd finally found my long-sought group. It consists of mongrels like myself who know that we belong nowhere -- and everywhere. This book chronicles my six-decade evolution from bemused Appalachian misfit to equally bemused citizen of the world."

Alther's story is woven with droll wit and affection. Stay on the ride with her, as she embarks on her decade long wild goose chase to ferret out deeply buried dark secrets, and you won't be disappointed.

Kinfolks - Falling Off the Family Tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors.
Author: Lisa Alther
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Date first published: 2007
ISBN-10: 1559708328
ISBN-13: 978-1559708326

Latest Genealogy Tools Create a Need to Know - New York Times

2007-08-18T07:14:00.000-06:00

Latest Genealogy Tools Create a Need to Know - New York Times:

"Katherine Holden’s family had long kept what she called “a deep dark secret.” When the family discussed its roots, there were hints, but no outright discussion, of a great-grandmother who had lived in South Dakota and was the equivalent of native royalty: the putative daughter of an American Indian chief. But her family never spoke in detail of their heritage, and it was only when Dr. Holden, a Connecticut physician, became interested in her family tree that she verified her lineage. “I was fairly surprised to find her name in the 1900 U.S. Census in an American Indian orphanage under her childhood name,” she said." [click on link for rest of story]

Billingsley to speak at AGS Fall Seminar

2007-08-04T15:59:00.000-06:00

Arkansas Genealogical SocietyFall Seminar 2007
Friday, October 19th & Saturday, October 20th
Pleasant Valley Church of Christ
10900 N. Rodney Parham Rd., Little Rock, AR

Friday, October 19th Speaker: Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D
Friday Night Course Information . . .

*Melungeons and Other Mixed Race Groups: Bi- or tri-racial heritage is often overlooked by genealogists. But many of us unknowingly have a mixed heritage. This lecture sheds light on groups of people like Melungeons, who illustrate the complexity of researching based on an assumption of race.

*The Reality of Researching Your Indian Ancestors: Rather than teaching how to trace Five Civilized Tribe ancestors through the normal avenues, this lecture gets real. Most Native Americans did not sign up on the Indian Rolls, and, thus, genealogists must use other methods to “prove” Indian ancestry.

Saturday, October 20th Speaker: Sharon Tate Moody, CG
Saturday Night Course Information . . .

*If Living Were a Crime: Evidence our Ancestors Left at the Scene: Most of our ancestors lived ordinary lives and are difficult to document. Case studies will demonstrate a new strategy of reconstructing the lives of ordinary ancestors by approaching their lives as “crime scenes.”

*The Law: Portal to Understanding Ancestor Documents: Throughout their lives and even after their deaths, our ancestors were controlled and guided by the law. Actual documents will be explored to gain a working knowledge of legalese and better understanding of what records say. Techniques for conducting basic legal research on their documents will be discussed.

*Airing the Family Laundry: This lecture will show you how to go beyond the Internet and dig through court records to uncover family skeletons or secrets that abound in the old case files. Case studies will walk you through the steps to find these seldom-used records.

*No Ring? No License? Are They Married? Are common law marriages any more than shacking up or living in sin? Are they “real” marriages? This lecture will present an actual situation in courtroom argument style. The audience will sit as a jury to hear the evidence and vote a decision.

Additional Information: Contact Jan Davenport, 1 Cinnamon Dr., North Little Rock, AR 72120 or call 501-912-3587. If using email please reference AGS FALL SEMINAR: jhdavenport@comcast.net

Accommodations: Governors Suites, 1501 Merrill Drive, Little Rock, AR 72211. Call 501-224-8051 for reservations.

Lunch will be included with Saturday Registration: Soup, sandwich, chips, cookie & drink.

History Lost, History Found: The Search for Hardscramble

2007-08-04T15:52:00.000-06:00

Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D., will speak at the Darraugh Center at the Central Arkansas Library, on 3 October 2007, from 12:00-1:00pm. The forum is the monthly Legacies and Lunch, sponsored by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

Is anybody there?

2007-08-04T03:01:00.000-06:00

Is anybody there? - 27 January 2007 - New Scientist:

From New Scientist Print Edition.

I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. If I drew a family tree going back 10 generations, I would have to make space for a top line of 1024 ancestors. At 30 generations I would expect to see a line of over a billion ancestors. If I tried to research my family back 40 generations (only about 1000 years) I would be searching for the names of vastly more people than have ever lived. This is impossible, of course, but everyone has two parents, so what exactly is wrong with my reasoning?

The simple answer is that people marry their cousins or half-cousins. If you can have shared ancestors at the close proximity of cousin level, then imagine the number of shared ancestors there would be going back 40 generations." . . .

Click on link under title for full article.
From issue 2588 of New Scientist magazine,
27 January 2007, page 97

The Genealogy Craze in America:

2007-08-04T00:35:00.000-06:00

Strangled by Roots:
by Steven Pinker, in The New Republic Online
Post date 07.30.07 Issue date 08.06.07

New technologies often have unforeseeable consequences. Michael Faraday could not have anticipated the rise of the electric guitar and its effects on our culture, nor did the inventors of the laser realize they had laid the ground for a thriving industry of tattoo removal. And it is safe to say that Watson and Crick could not have foreseen a day when an analysis of Oprah Winfrey's DNA would tell her that she was descended from the Kpelle people of the Liberian rainforest. 'I feel empowered by this,' she said upon hearing the news, overcoming her disappointment that her ancestors were not Zulu warriors.... "

[To read entire article, click on link. Site egistration required, but is easy and free.]

Should Incest Be Legal? | TIME

2007-04-09T16:30:00.000-06:00

Should Incest Be Legal? | TIME

My List of Books on LibraryThing.com

2007-03-13T22:34:00.000-06:00

I've just begun to enter my books into LibraryThing.com, but I can tell already that it's addictive. So easy. Finally a way to organize my vast library of books. This link takes you to my catalog, which, as of now, only has a few of my books in it. Check back as I add more if you're interested.

Atahli Research & Consulting

2007-03-08T01:52:00.000-06:00

Atahli Research & Consulting

This blog has a lot of research into Choctaws and other Native American groups, as well as Melungeons.

Duped Dads Fight Back

2007-02-07T16:25:00.000-06:00

Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 -- Page 1 -- TIME

It was the lawyers of ancient Rome who came up with the modern definition of fatherhood: Mater semper certa est; pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant (rough translation: The mother is obvious; the father is the one she was married to when the child was born). The Romans, however, didn't have access to genetic testing. . .

William Safire: Retronyms

2007-01-07T17:36:00.000-06:00

On language: Back to the future with hot (and thirsty) retronyms

In Search of Unknown Generations

2006-12-23T16:01:00.000-06:00

Genealogy Conference
Angelina College (Lufkin, Texas); Thursday–Saturday, July 19–21, 2007

Lufkin is the hub of the East Texas region, located in the beautiful Piney Woods, on Hwy. 59 South, just two miles south of Loop 187.

Featured Speakers include:

CAROLYN EARLE BILLINGSLEY has a B.A. in history, with minors in Arkansas Studies and German, from UALR (University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She then studied at the university in Graz, Austria, for two years on a Fulbright Scholarship. Upon leaving Austria, she enrolled as a graduate student at Rice University in Houston, where she earned her M.A., then her Ph.D. in Southern History (with a field in Anthropological Kinship Theory) in 2001. Billingsley is the Coordinator for Course 3: Research in the South, at Samford University's Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham, Alabama; she teaches classes in genealogy and southern history at UALR; and she lectures locally and nationally. Billingsley's Ph.D. dissertation was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2004, and is titled Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier; the book won the Booker Worthen Literary Prize in 2005. She is also the author and compiler of many other books and articles, both genealogical and historical. Billingsley currently serves on the Arkansas Genealogical Society Board of Directors and is the co-editor of the monthly AGS E-zine.

Lectures:
The Formation of Kinship Groups in the South: The South was settled by kinship groups rather than individuals. But these kinship groups took time to develop, beginning with immigration to the South in the 1600s. This lecture provides understanding of how kinship groups form and operate enhance genealogist’s abilities to research their family groups.
Kinship Theory: A Case Study: Understanding the basics of kinship is key to genealogical research. This lecture demonstrates how kinship theory advances skills in the areas of marriage, politics, economics, migration, and settlement patterns.
Racial Mixtures in the South: In the Old South, individuals were either white or they weren't . . . and those who weren't (or those who were considered not white by neighbors) faced special problems. Their difficulties introduce problems for researchers trying to trace black, mulatto, dark-skinned, or Native American ancestors. This lecture sheds light on the background of such groups in the South, including Melungeons, Red-Bones*, and other tri-racial isolate groups. * (Lufkin is very near Louisiana Redbone territory.)
The Real Story on Tracing Your Indian Ancestors in the South: So many southern families had Native American ancestors, but few of those ancestors signed up on the Indian Rolls. This lecture explains that the vast majority are not on those official rolls and how you can dig out the facts about your Native American ancestors when there are no official records recording them as Indian.

DESMOND WALLS ALLEN has taught genealogy classes all over the United States, and brings 20 years of teaching experience to the classroom. She holds a B.S.E. in education and her Master's degree is in history. She appeared in Public Television's Ancestor series as a guest expert, and moderated AETN's special on genealogy in Arkansas. She's the owner of Arkansas Research, Inc., a publishing company devoted to making historical information about Arkansas available to researchers. The author/compiler of more than 250 books, she's still a down-to-earth teacher interested in helping students learn.

Lectures:
Confederate military research - "Which Henry Cook?" Researching men of the same or similar names is difficult enough with traditional genealogical sources, but in Confederate records, it can be especially frustrating. This lecture presents a case study applied to the research technique of keeping a subject with a known group of associates.
How to get the most out of death certificates. Anyone can read a document, but learning to hear documents speak is a learned skill. We'll learn how to do that using death certificates, a source common to all genealogists.
Arkansas! Arkansas problems can make you feel like a rat eating a red onion! This lecture will help promote awareness of Arkansas records and repositories.
Targeting cousins to learn about *your* DNA. Confused about DNA? We'll leave the scientific details to others and talk about why you want to pursue your living cousins, keeping an eye to the future of DNA testing. (This lecture is by the woman who said 15 years ago that we'd be core-sampling grandpa for his DNA sample.)

Imperial Polk Genealogy Society Seminar

2006-12-23T15:25:00.000-06:00

Registration
Featuring Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D.
+Kinship Theory for Genealogists
+Kinship Theory: A Case Study

Seminar to be Held in Lakeland, Florida on March 10 » Genealogy Blog

2006-12-23T15:22:00.000-06:00

Seminar to be Held in Lakeland, Florida on March 10 » Genealogy Blog, featuring Carolyn Earle Billingsley.

You May be a Fundamentalist If...

2006-10-27T22:25:00.000-06:00

How to Make Compost, a Composting Guide

2006-09-22T22:28:00.000-06:00

How to Make Compost, a Composting Guide

Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator

2006-09-16T16:39:00.000-06:00

Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator

Satire: Bush Vows to Google bin Laden - Newsweek Andy Borowitz - MSNBC.com

2006-09-14T13:47:00.000-06:00

Satire: Bush Vows to Google bin Laden - Newsweek Andy Borowitz - MSNBC.com

Samford University, IGHR: Course 3

2006-09-02T15:37:00.000-06:00

Course 3: Schedule of Classes, June 2007
Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D., Course Coordinator

Amazon Review: Communities of Kinship

2006-08-21T22:43:00.000-06:00

Major Breakthrough in Historiography, January 16, 2006
Reviewer: William R. Erwin (Durham, NC United States)

Dr. Carolyn Earle Billingsley has made a major breakthrough in American, especially Southern, historiography. She has elevated genealogy into the first rank of scholarly tools for understanding society and what springs from it. In the process she has overturned former conclusions as to how the Southern frontier was settled and developed. The core element is communities of kinship.

They have been right under our noses all along. Although writers have noted the importance of kinships episodically, they have explored them indifferently. It is common practice for biographers to devote a few pages to family background but little more. One extraordinary exception was Robert A. Caro who described President Johnson's families and environment in the Texas Hill Country in vivid detail. You could almost see little Lyndon as an incipient statesman. A friend wisely observed, though, that we do not know what cultural baggage those families brought to those hills and where they got it.

Dr. Billingsley's process opens up vast possibilities for research among families and persons for whom manuscript and printed documentation is skimpy or virtually non-existent, which is to say, most of them. As a longtime manuscript librarian I know how spotty the records are. Many a worthy in his or her time is now unknown when the opposite was the case in their own time and place.

Dr. Billingsley has not only theorized about the process but also demonstrated it in a study of a migrating, changing community of kinship, one without much documentation beyond genealogy. She has shown us how to do it. She has identified the core element of Southern society that defined its culture, politics, economics, and religion. As she noted, church history is incomplete if you are unaware of the familial interconnections of the clergy among themselves and communities of kinship.

Reading this book, I felt like I was reading about my own community of kinship, a most useful term, from Virginia and, especially South Carolina, to Alabama and westward. Our complex was quite larger and more concentrated in one region. In our principal county, the metropolis of Birmingham rose among us. Large numbers of us stayed and, having developed a rural society from scratch, participated in making a city.

Perhaps her Earles connect to our Earles in South Carolina and Alabama, two galaxies touching at the edges. One of our prominent relatives was a neighbor of her kinship community in Bibb County, Alabama. Cases in point!

2006 APG Professional Management Conference

2006-08-21T22:28:00.000-06:00

The 2006 APG Professional Management Conference
August 30, 2006 Boston

Presented by the Association of Professional Genealogist in conjuction with the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies.
Registration Information
In order to attend the Professional Management Conference (PMC), individuals must also register for at least Wednesday’s Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) Conference. The following are the PMC rates only:
Early Member Registration (by December 31, 2005) $100
Regular Member Registration (by July 1, 2006) $110
Late Member Registration (after July 1, 2006) $150
Non-Member Registration (any date) $150
Three ways to register or order an FGS brochure:
1. Online: www.fgs.org - the FGS conference is a 4-day conference from August 30th through September 2nd. Online registration for the conference is coming soon.2. Write: Federation of Genealogical SocietiesP. O. Box 200940, Austin, TX 78720-09403. Call: 888-FGS-1500 toll free

The Schedule

Wednesday ~ Main Deck ~ All Players
Stolen Ancestors: How to Identify, Reclaim, and Protect by James Jeffrey
Kinship Theory for Genealogists by Carolyn Earle Billingsley, PHD
Print on Demand - A Publishing Option for Genealogists by Birdie Monk Holsclaw, CG, FUGA, and Jake Gehring

Wednesday - Port Side
It’s A Small Biz: Genealogy Is Just the Product You Sell by Beverly Rice, CGPricing Your Services by Kory L. Meyerink, AG, FUGAThe Part-Time Professional Genealogist: A Jekyll and Hyde Existence by Ann Mohr Osisek

Wednesday - Starboard Side
DNA for the Professional Genealogist by Thomas Shawker, MDThe Role of the 21st Century Genealogist in International Probate Research by Eileen M. O’Duill, CG, CGLSpeaking! by George G. Morgan

The Ship's Log
Stolen Ancestors: How to Identify, Reclaim, and Protect. James K. Jeffrey. Client work presents much pleasure, opportunity for professional growth and development, and—on occasion—reason to pause. Customers call upon our expertise in creating presentation pieces, to sort out confused lineages, and to break through brick walls. Discover how to quickly spot the confusion of persons, fabricated lineages, and fictional ancestors.

Kinship Theory for Genealogists. Carolyn Earle Billingsley, PhD. We as genealogists have long insisted that our field is a legitimate discipline closely akin to scholarly history, but efforts to construct a theory of genealogy have had mixed results. This lecture proffers the following: the central organizing principle in the discipline of genealogy is the reconstruction and analysis of kinship. This theoretical base defines genealogy and places the field at a point midway between, and equal in status, to history and anthropology.

Print on Demand: A Publishing Option for Genealogists. Jake Gehring and Birdie Monk Holsclaw, CG, FUGA. Learn about “print-on-demand,” a recently developed technology which can offer new publishing and marketing options for the professional genealogist. This lecture will present a description of this printing service, uses of the service by professionals, the pros and cons of the service, and vendors.

It’s a Small Biz: Genealogy Is Just the Product You Sell. Beverly Rice, CG. There is much to do and many facets to consider before you leave the world of a regular income, retirement accounts, and health insurance to become a small business owner. You must consider two separate entities that are co-dependent: the product (you and your genealogical skills) and the management of a small business, making a profit or at least not taking a loss. This lecture will focus on the balance between the two.

Pricing Your Services. Kory Meyerink, MLS, AG, FUGA. Pricing services may be the most mysterious aspect of running a business. Setting prices too high may result in not generating enough business to pay the bills and earn a decent living. Setting prices too low devalues the services offered and de-motivates the researcher, clearly an unprofitable way to run a business. Low prices will eventually bankrupt the business, especially when unexpected expenses arise.

The Part-Time Professional Genealogist: A Jekyll and Hyde Existence. Ann Mohr Osisek. This is a primer for those individuals considering careers as professional genealogists. What are the expectations, struggles, disappointments, and triumphs? This lecture will encourage others to forge ahead with their aspirations as professional genealogists and not become discouraged in the process. Balance, fortitude, and focus will be stressed. The importance of support network of family, friends, and the genealogical community will be discussed.

DNA Testing for the Professional Genealogist. Thomas Shawker, MD. This talk will explain the principles behind Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA tests for genealogy show how to interpret the results, and demonstrate how they can be used for genealogy. There will be a discussion, with examples, of what DNA test professionals should recommend to their clients, how the results should be interpreted, and what reference sources are available that professionals can use to advise their clients.

Role of the 21st Century Genealogist in International Probate Research. Eileen O’Duill, CG, CGL. In recent years, genealogists have become increasingly involved in the legal cases, particularly intestate matters. Identifying the nearest next-of- kin and documenting a relationship to the deceased requires research skills and determination. Rules of evidence as they apply to a genealogist’s work will be examined. Particular emphasis will be placed on ethics involved in locating the nearest next of kin.

Speaking! George G. Morgan. Breaking into the national genealogical conference speaking circuit can be frustrating but it can be done. Program chairs are looking for new ideas and perspectives about records, methodologies, and helpful electronic products and services. Learn what they are really seeking and how to break into the national conference business. This lecture also will address speaking contracts and the pros and cons of using transparencies or computer-based visual materials to excite and educate audiences.

The Crew
Carolyn Earle Billingsly, Ph.D. earned her BA (1994) in history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. After studying in Austria on a Fulbright Scholarship (1994–1996), she was awarded her MA (1998) and PhD (2001) from Rice University, in the fields of southern history and anthropological kinship theory. Her dissertation, published as Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier (University of Georgia Press, 2004), is based on a genealogical study of an extended kinship group.

Jake Gehring is a popular technology writer and lecturer and is employed with the Family and Church History Department of the LDS Church. Jake graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in genealogy/family history and is former editor of Genealogical Computing. He is a member of the APG Board of Directors.

Birdie Monk Holsclaw, CG, FUGA, has served as an officer, committee/board member, and volunteer for APG and FGS, is a former indexer of the NGSQ, and contributor to the APGQ and The Colorado Genealogist. She is a local and national lecturer, with a special interest in problem solving using neighborhood reconstruction, land and related records, and records of the deaf and blind.

James K. Jeffrey is the collection specialist in genealogy at the Denver Public Library, president of the Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England Family History Society, Trustee of the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History, and a 2004 recipient of the P. William Filby Award for Excellence in Genealogical Librarianship. He is past president of the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies and The Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists.

Kory Meyerink, MLS, AG, FUGA, is the editor and primary author of Ancestry’s ALA award-winning, Printed Sources: A Guide to Published Genealogical Records. A professional researcher in Salt Lake City, he is a vice president at ProGenealogists, Inc. where he guides research, writing, and development of Internet genealogy tools. Named a Fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association in 2002, he has been accredited since 1980 (Germany, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and New England states).

George G. Morgan owns and operates Aha! Seminars, Inc., a company focusing on continuing education for U.S. library personnel and genealogists worldwide. He is the author of the “Along Those Lines ...,” online genealogy column at Ancestry.com, three highly successful books, and more than 200 articles and online columns. He is past president of ISFHWE, a director of the Genealogical Speakers Guild, and a director of the Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa). He teaches online genealogy classes for MyFamily.com and was program chair for the highly acclaimed 2003 FGS Conference held in Orlando, Florida.

Eileen O’Duill, CG, CGL is a Dublin-based genealogist specializing in international probate research. Eileen has researched over 200 estates involving Irish next-of-kin worldwide and has been admitted as an expert witness at kinship hearings in five New York counties. She is a member of the Council of the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland. She co-authored Irish Civil Registration: Where Do I Begin? with Steven ffeary Smyrl and is recognized as an expert on the General Register Office of Ireland.

Ann Mohr Osisek has served as managing instructor for genealogy programs at the Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida, taught genealogy classes for the Orange County, Florida Adult Education Program for fourteen years, and is a genealogy instructor at Seminole County (Florida) Community College. She is vice president of the Florida State Genealogical Society, a past president of Central Florida Genealogical Society and their long-standing education chair.

Beverly Rice, CG, has been teaching and lecturing on genealogical and historical topics for over twelve years. She has been a Family History Center volunteer librarian for fifteen years and is on the faculty of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Beverly is the secretary for the Association of Professional Genealogists. She has been a small business owner for over 25 years, and is currently making the change from genealogy as a “not-for-profit business” to genealogy as a “for-profit business.”

Thomas Shawker, MD, graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and works as a research physician at the National Institute of Health. His academic accomplishments include over 100 scientific publications. He is past president of the Prince George’s County (Maryland) Genealogical Society, currently serves as chairman of the NGS Family Health and Heredity Committee, and is the author of the book, Unlocking Your Genetic History in the NGS book series.

Genealogists discover royal roots for all

2006-07-05T05:46:00.000-06:00

By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer
Sat Jul 1, 5:18 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060701/ap_on_sc/every_man_a_king

Actress Brooke Shields has a pretty impressive pedigree — hanging from her family tree are Catherine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Charlemagne and El Cid, William the Conquerer and King Harold, vanquished by William at the Battle of Hastings.

Shields also descends from five popes, a whole mess of early New England settlers, and the royal houses of virtually every European country. She counts renaissance pundit Niccolo Machiavelli and conquistador Hernando Cortes as ancestors.

What is it about Brooke? Well, nothing — at least genealogically.

Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another.

"Millions of people have provable descents from medieval monarchs," said Mark Humphrys, a genealogy enthusiast and professor of computer science at Dublin City University in Ireland. "The number of people with unprovable descents must be massive."

By the same token, for every king in a person's family tree there are thousands and thousands of nobodies whose births, deaths and lives went completely unrecorded by history. We'll never know about them, because until recently vital records were a rarity for all but the noble classes.

It works the other way, too. Anybody who had children more than a few hundred years ago is likely to have millions of descendants today, and quite a few famous ones.

Take King Edward III, who ruled England during the 14th century and had nine children who survived to adulthood. Among his documented descendants are presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, both Roosevelts), authors (Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning), generals (Robert E. Lee), scientists (Charles Darwin) and actors (Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Brooke Shields). Some experts estimate that 80 percent of England's present population descends from Edward III.

A slight twist of fate could have prevented the existence of all of them. In 1312 the close adviser and probable lover of Edward II, Piers Gaveston, was murdered by a group of barons frustrated with their king's ineffectual rule. The next year the beleaguered king produced the son who became Edward III.

Had Edward II been killed along with Gaveston in 1312 — a definite possibility at the time — Edward III would never have been born. He wouldn't have produced the lines of descent that ultimately branched out to include all those presidents, writers and Hollywood stars — not to mention everybody else.

Of course, the only reason we're talking about Edward III is that history remembers him. For every medieval monarch there are countless long-dead nobodies whose intrigues, peccadilloes and luck have steered the course of history simply by determining where, when and with whom they reproduced.

The longer ago somebody lived, the more descendants a person is likely to have today. Humphrys estimates that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, appears on the family tree of every person in the Western world.

Some people have actually tried to establish a documented line between Muhammad, who was born in the 6th century, and the medieval English monarchs, and thus to most if not all people of European descent. Nobody has succeeded yet, but one proposed lineage comes close. Though it runs through several strongly suspicious individuals, the line illustrates how lines of descent can wander down through the centuries, connecting famous figures of the past to most of the people living today.

The proposed genealogy runs through Muhammad's daughter Fatima. Her husband Ali, also a cousin of Muhammad, is considered by Shiite Muslims the legitimate heir to leadership of Islam.

Ali and Fatima had a son, al-Hasan, who died in 670. About three centuries later, his ninth great-grandson, Ismail, carried the line to Europe when he became Imam of Seville.

Many genealogists dispute the connection between al-Hasan and Ismail, claiming that it includes fictional characters specifically invented by medieval genealogists trying to link the Abbadid dynasty, founded by Ismail's son, to Muhammad.

The Abbadid dynasty was celebrated for making Seville a great cultural center at a time when most of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. The last emir in that dynasty was supposed to have had a daughter named Zaida, who is said to have changed her name to Isabel upon converting to Christianity and marrying Alfonso VI, king of Castile and Leon.

Yet there is no good evidence demonstrating that Isabel, who bore one son by Alfonso VI, is the same person as Zaida. So the line between Muhammad and the English monarchs probably breaks again at this point.

But if you give the Zaida/Isabel story the benefit of the doubt too, the line eventually leads to Isabel's fifth great-granddaughter Maria de Padilla (though it does encounter yet another potentially fictional character in the process).

Maria married another king of Castile and Leon, Peter the Cruel. Their great-great-granddaughter was Queen Isabel, who funded the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Her daughter Juana married a Hapsburg, and eventually gave rise to a Medici, a Bourbon and long line of Italian princes and dukes, spreading the Mohammedan line of descent all over Europe.

Finally, 43 generations from Mohammed, you reach an Italian princess named Marina Torlonia.

Her granddaughter is Brooke Shields.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Book Notes (unedited) written for the Journal of Southern History

2006-06-26T20:40:00.000-06:00

The Mississippi River in 1953: A Photographic Journey from the Headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico. Charles Dee Sharp, with essays by John O. Anfinson. (Santa Fe, N.M., and Stauton, Va.: Center for American Places, 2005; distributed by the University of Chicago Press. Pp. x, 222. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 1-930066-27-9.) This sumptuous volume of color and black and white photographs, along with Charles Dee Sharp’s contemporaneous journal entries accompanying the images, captures the feel, the variety, the people, the beauty, and the reality of the many aspects of the Mississippi River of a bygone era. Although the documentary film Sharp intended to make never materialized, his photographs are beautifully reproduced here. In the twenty-three-page conclusion, an essay by John O. Anfinson, an author and historian of America’s greatest river, provides historical background. This volume also includes introductory material explaining the provenance of the pictures, an appendix, which discusses the river’s geology, thirty-two pages of “Notes on the Photographs,” compiled by project director Randall B. Jones, and a selected bibliography. [Carolyn Earle Billingsley, University of Arkansas at Little Rock]

Between Contacts and Colonies: Archaeological Perspectives on the Protohistoric Southeast. Edited by Carmeron B. Wesson and Mark A. Rees. (Tuscaloosa, and London: University of Alabama Press, 2002. Pp. x, 270, 34 illustrations. Paper $29.99, ISBN 0-8173-1167-X; Cloth $55.00, ISBN 0-8173-1253-6.) In this volume of essays, taken from presentations at a 1997 symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archeological Conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ten chapters present perspectives on Native Americans in the Southeast during the time between initial contact with Europeans and the beginning recorded history pertaining to these peoples almost two centuries later—a period referred to as the Protohistoric period (roughly the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries). The authors draw on multidisciplinary approaches, including history, archaeology, ethnohistory, and anthropology, and most of the essays are quite theoretical in style and content. The themes analyzing Native American culture include: “cultural ecology, warfare, architecture, subsistence, disease, trade, the construction of social identities, and political economy” and sites discussed include “data from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia” (p. 9). [Carolyn Earle Billingsley, University of Arkansas at Little Rock]

Malindy’s Freedom: The Story of a Slave Family. Mildred Johnson and Theresa Delsoin; edited by Stuart Symington Jr. and Anne W. Symington. (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 215. $22.95, ISBN 1-883982-53-7.) Malindy’s Freedom, beautifully crafted and illustrated, recounts the life of a young Cherokee Indian girl (born circa 1820), who became enslaved illegally in Franklin County, Missouri. As an adult slave, she married a free black man, whose heritage was mostly Irish and Native American, and gave birth to their five children, who were, like their mother, enslaved. Taken directly from the authors’s slave grandmother’s oft-told stories from her own experiences and those of her mother Malindy, this work of fictionalized oral history (actual dialogue is invented) includes well integrated historical context, albeit with only a selected bibliography instead of footnotes. As with much oral history, while containing much factual information, it is a bit marred by the tone, which all too often makes Malindy and her husband Charlie Wilson sound vaguely saint like. For example, “[Malindy’s] children were taught self-control, discipline, forbearance, respect, and honor” (p. 93). However, this is a tale powerfully told with narrative fluidity to introduce readers to a “real” story of slavery and is a good addition to the literature of slave narratives. Malindy’s Freedom is especially effective in conveying the perils of a female slave in a world where she had no control over her own body or the fate of her own children; the section where she and her children are sold is particularly affecting. Emancipation came to Malindy and her family after the Civil War, but she died only five years later, leaving her husband and grown children to complete their journey from slavery to freedom. [Carolyn Earle Billingsley, University of Arkansas at Little Rock]

America’s Trail of Tears: A Story of Love and Betrayal. Dean W. Arnold. (Chattanooga, Tenn.: Chattanooga Historical Foundation Co., 2005. P. 274. Paper, $19.95, plus $3 shipping; available from author: PO Box 2053, Chattanooga, TN 37409. ISBN 0-9749076-0-X.) The author’s intent in writing this book is clear by the time one finishes reading it: he realized that neither the Cherokee people nor non-Native Americans were familiar with this important story of how the Cherokee were removed to present-day Oklahoma and his goal was to tell the story in an accessible way. Dean W. Arnold is a journalist and local historian, who has provided a clear narrative of the events leading up to, surrounding, and immediately after the usurpation of Cherokee lands in the Southeast. (There is very little about the actual Trail or Tears.) All the significant players are fleshed out, including John Ross, the Ridges, Elias Boudinot, Andrew Jackson, and the many clergymen who worked with religious organizations to bring their message and “civilization” to the native people, as well as supporting characters such as Chief Justice John Marshall and John C. Calhoun. Arnold is not breaking any new ground here, but he has produced a readable narrative of what happened and why during this crucial period of American history, along with explanations of South Carolina’s Nullification Act, Jackson’s motivations, the overall political climate, the culture of the times, along with illustrations, source citations, a bibliography, and a robust index. Furthermore, Arnold presents the stories from all sides in the conflict: Did Andrew Jackson have the best interests of Native Americans in mind or did he just want to open up their lands to westward expansion? Did the Ridges sell out and become the villains, or were they acting to ensure what they believed to be their people’s survival? Did Ross close his eyes to the inevitability of removal or was he a great leader for acting on behalf of the majority of his people to the very end? This is an excellent book, historically well grounded, to introduce and explain the topic to anyone who might be unfamiliar with the story in its entirety. [Carolyn Earle Billingsley, University of Arkansas at Little Rock]

Educating the Masses: The Unfolding History of Black School Administrators in Arkansas, 1900–2000. Research Committee of the Retired Educators of Little Rock and Other Public Schools, edited by C. Calvin Smith, contributing editor Linda Walls Joshua. (Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press, 2003. Pp. x, 223. Cloth $29.95, ISBN 1-55728-744-9. Paper $14.95, ISBN 1-55728-806-2.) Arkansas, a poor state, has always been hard-pressed to provide public education for her white students; black students had even less funding, poorer facilities, and teachers who were paid even less than their white counterparts. This book, which begins with the advent of schools for black students during Reconstruction, lists many of the black school administrators of the twentieth century and recounts their individual and collective struggles to improve the situation of their schools and their students. [Carolyn Earle Billingsley, University of Arkansas at Little Rock]

"Oh, for a Touch of the Vanished Hand" by Dana M. Mangham

2006-05-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

"Oh, for a Touch of the Vanished Hand": Discovering a Southern Family and the Civil War by Dana M. Mangham; Review by Carolyn Earle Billingsley; Journal of Southern History, Vol. 69, No. 1 (2003 ): 185+.

Review of All Our Relations by Lorri Glover

2006-05-07T21:44:00.000-06:00

All Our Relations: Blood Ties and Emotional Bonds among the Early South Carolina Gentry, Review by Carolyn Earle Billingsley; Journal of Southern History, Vol. 68, No. 4 (2002).