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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]
22 September 2007
21 September 2007
16 September 2007
"Sumter County, S.C. Turks"
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.
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.
19 August 2007
Lisa Alther Home Page
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.
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
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
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
18 August 2007
Latest Genealogy Tools Create a Need to Know - New York Times
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]
"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]
04 August 2007
Billingsley to speak at AGS Fall Seminar
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.
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
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?
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
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:
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.]
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.]
09 April 2007
13 March 2007
My List of Books on LibraryThing.com
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.
08 March 2007
Atahli Research & Consulting
Atahli Research & Consulting
This blog has a lot of research into Choctaws and other Native American groups, as well as Melungeons.
This blog has a lot of research into Choctaws and other Native American groups, as well as Melungeons.
07 February 2007
Duped Dads Fight Back
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. . .
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. . .
07 January 2007
23 December 2006
In Search of Unknown Generations
- 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
Registration
Featuring Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Ph.D.
+Kinship Theory for Genealogists
+Kinship Theory: A Case Study
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
Seminar to be Held in Lakeland, Florida on March 10 » Genealogy Blog, featuring Carolyn Earle Billingsley.
27 October 2006
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