Her Kinfolks Were All Thumbs

Novelist Lisa Alther suspects that her family concealed its Melungeon heritage back when multiracial ancestry was frowned upon. While researching her memoir, Kinfolks: Falling off the Family Tree, she was able to confirm some facts about the bogeymen of her youth.

While growing up, she heard from a baby-sitter that Melungeons sported six fingers on each hand, all the better to "grab mean little children and carry them off to their caves in the cliffs outside of town."

This mythology was not entirely outlandish. As an adult, Alther's search led to Brent Kennedy, a respected Melungeon scholar and newfound cousin, in that they share the same grandmother's grandmother. He showed her the scars where his extra thumb on each hand had been removed. [Link]

Not Bogeymen After All

From the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader of July 30, 2005:

Once a slur, now a source of pride

By Steve Ivey

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

FRANKFORT - When S.J. Arthur started tracing her lineage more than 20 years ago, a fellow researcher stammered as she noticed recurring family names.

Was she connected to a unique group of people known as Melungeons, the researcher timidly asked, afraid Arthur might slap her. The reference was once considered a racial slur.

[snip]

The Melungeons have been described as a "tri-racial isolate," with a mixture of white, black and Native American ancestry. Others have claimed Portuguese and Turkish lineage.

Often, they had olive skin, black hair and blue eyes, setting them apart from Scotch-Irish settlers in their native Appalachia.

The group has been there for more than two centuries, enduring discrimination until recently.

[snip]

Until the past 20 years or so, such a branch in the family tree might not have been welcomed.

Ill-behaved children in eastern Tennessee and western Virginia were told the Melungeons would come for them.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

To learn more, visit the Melungeon Heritage Association.