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Joanne,
I think you missed Tim's point. He should correct me if this does not reflect his perspectivem but I THINK he is saying that (1) it is not a theory, just an assemblage of documented facts, and (2) that while it is a certain, undeniable FACT that Africans--and primarily Angolans--are the root of some of the earliest Melungeon family lines, that OTHER couplings ... of White and Indian, or Indian and Black, of White and Black, and of any of the resulting mixtures with any other ... would also have started up outside the family lines taht Tim takes back to 1619.
BUT--and here's the part that I don't think Tim actually said, but which I believe falls from those statements--that ultimately most, if not all of those non-Angolan mixtures would have eventually married in with (or at least become allied as close travelling companions) the earliest families that resulted from mixing in and around Jamestown during or after the initial indentures of the 20-and-odd (and other Angolans who came along soon thereafter).
I suspect that Tim will disagree with some of that, but distilling the story (not theory) that arises naturally from the facts, those are the salient components of Melungeon developmental history: namely that there is a common thread that ultimately goes back as far as it can ON THIS CONTINENT--since this was the Melungeon crucible--to the original group who started the mixing among Africans and White indentures, and almost simultaneously between the resulting offspring and Indians, then with Whites and Indians and mixed folks, then among mixed families for several generations, then to a period of "marrying White" until most families started passing for White and the family secret stopped being passed down ... right up to the point at which most Melungeon descendants started piecing the story back together when their genealogical research began to turn up facts from the Census (and other documentation) indicating that Great-Great grandpa was an FPC, Indian, or Mulatto.
But, of course, you are free to disagree.
Oh, and by the way, among the couplings in some of the family lines, an occasional Portuguese or Spaniard may have crept in, maybe a Sephardic Jew or a Gypsy, and even a rare Turk. But those nearly negligible components cannot be said to be a common thread among the various Melungeon family lines--all of which are ostensibly White, today--whereas Indians and Africans are common to all the families ... as a result of cross polination among the families over 10 to 15 generations. In that same way, of course, depending on how early some solitary "other" came in, that (mostly) Mediterranean blood would have touched all the succeeding family lines thereafter. And sine that individual would surely have been a male, his presence could be felt WAY out of proportion to his relative importance to the line because of the nature od DNA male-line test results--especially in families where his offspring wqas male, and his offfspring's offspring has tended always to include males.
For whatever reason, with certain otable exceptions (like Don Collins), it seems that many of the Melungeon descendants involved in these discussions must have the African up the female line ... because so few claim to have Sub-Saharan African DNA test results up their paternal artery. Two comments on that: (1) Tim has indicated that there were Angolan WOMEN on the ship that was taken from the Portuguese in 1618 and which arrived at Jamestown in 1619. It is NOT known whether there were women among the 20-and-odd, but there surely were women among the other Angolan captives on that ship. What happened to the rest of the captives after the 20-and-odd were (illegally) bartered for supplies with Jamestown's finest? Because it was an illegal transaction, it stands to reason that other serreptitious trading for African indentures also went on, and that some of them were women. Some of them would have eventually married African men--as in the case of Anthony Johnson [Antonio the Black] whose wife was also African. But others of those African women would have ended up marrying, coupling with, and otherwise having children with British indentured servants, British colonists, and Indians.
Another confounding factor that could help to account for why so few male-to-male Melungeon lines have shown up as originating from Sub-Saharan Africa may be that BY FAR more people involved in genealogical research are women ... meaning that they cannot be the son of a son of a son ... because they are not a son, at all.
One more factor may be that when people start this trek, they do not expect to find African ancestry. they are looking for confirmation of the family's "cover story" about Portuguese ancestry (usually), or looking to validate the family's story of American Indian ancestry. When people have their DNA testing done, SOME are not pleased wit the findings and bug out ... and off the discussion lists. Some will say that is an exaggeration of the empact of such results on those who paid to find out the truth. But I point back to all the MANY anecdotes that people used to share on the venerable Melungeon List, concerning how angry family members became when they were told the news that they had ancestors who were listed as Mulatto or FPC on the census. How many of you reported than experience? And how many HAD the experience, lost heart, and simply faded away and out of the research and discussion? For some, they wanted to know, found out, and left. For others, they wanted a specific answer, got a different one, and--disappointed--left. And for some, having been brought up with a lot of Southern-born prejudices (and consider where ALL our families spring from), the news or report--whether from documentation, from linking to close families that already had the answer, or from DNA reports--would have gone beyond disappointment to anger and upset, realizing the lie their family had engaged in for generations. None of those people end up showing up as having relatively recent African origins ... by self-selection OUT of the discussion and OUT of the reported and shared test results.
Anyway, I'm not speaking for Tim, and maybe he'll sign up to counter my conclusions that are based--in large part--on his documentation. But until then, that's how I see it.
Curtis friend9
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