Historical Melungeons: November 2013

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Which First Thanksgiving?

No. 1. In 1586, the first thanksgiving held by Englishmen on the North American continent took place on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. This celebration was by the company of 100 men from Cornwall, England that Sir Walter Raleigh had brought to America to found a colony. After a year when the relief ship arrived, they held a thanksgiving dinner, and fed-up with the hardships and perils, they all went home.

No. 2. In 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia, the starving remnants of the first settlers held a thanksgiving dinner while awaiting the arrival of their relief ship.

No. 3. In 1612, also at Jamestown, Virginia, a dinner was held after the arrival of Governor Dale with a ship-load of girls intended to become the wives of the settlers.

No. 4. In 1619, a dinner of thanks was held at Berkley Plantation on the James River in Virginia.

No. 5. In 1621, at Plymouth Plantation, a great dinner of thanks was held. Pilgrim Edward Winslow in a letter of December 11, 1621, to a friend in England, described their First Thanksgiving (as printed in Mourt's Relation) as follows.

"Our harvest being gotten in our Governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They, four, in one day killed as much fowl as with a little beside, served the company almost a week. At which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the Plantation, and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others."

This latter Thanksgiving dinner is the one that has survived and became the National Holiday.

Enter your email address to start receiving this blog in your inbox

Monday, November 11, 2013

9th Annual International Conference on Genetic Genealogy – Day 2

November 11, 2013 at 3:37 AM (General)

An excellent detailed report from Jennifer Zinck on Day 2 of the Family Tree DNA conference.

*Note: It’s very late but I had a flight tonight and I wanted to get the information out. With little sleep, I am sure there are countless errors. I’ll fix it up tomorrow. I figured everyone would rather have the information quickly rather than perfectly!

The first thing on the agenda for the morning was the International Society of Genetic Genealogy 2013 Meeting. ISOGG was born at the 2004 FTDNA conference. Katherine Borges spoke about the development and launch of ISOGG in 2004 and 2005 and the fact that it is free. It is a self-supporting and volunteer organization. There is always a need for help. If you have a niche where you can help, that would be great.

The ISOGG Y-Browse is now up.

One ISOGG wiki page that is getting a lot of hits is the new page for Free DNA Tests. Many administrators sponsor tests and some projects raise money to sponsor tests.

The Journal of Genetic of Genetic Genealogy was founded the same year as ISOGG at the FTDNA conference. Katherine said that she has been lobbied to take JOGG under ISOGG’s umbrella but she has resisted because it wasn’t broken. At this point JOGG is not working well but we are not at that point yet. Katherine is determined not to let it die. The current editor of JOGG is Dr. Turi King of the University of Leicester who worked on the King Richard III project. Turi has been very busy with this and now there is a rumor that Dr. King will have to work on the King Arthur project.

Katherine reminded us to be very careful when we talk to reporters, as they can take out sound bites that might be good or bad. After a two hour conversation, they could pick out one line that may or may not be relevant. What you say applies to all of us, including the people in your projects.

The ISOGG Wiki is a great resource. Be sure to use it but be sure to source it. You are welcome to set up free project pages on the wiki.

ISOGG has had a presence at several conferences. “Who Do You Think You Are? Live” Conference in London takes place in February. This is the biggest conference in the world. It averages 11,000 – 15,000 people in three days. FTDNA has had a stall there and is very busy for the entire time. Brian Swann has arranged for an ISOGG Stand each year. The Free DNA Testing list gets posted in this stand. This year there will be a specification for how many tests the project would like to sponsor. The SCGS Jamboree & ISOGG’s DNA Day takes place in June in California. ISOGG has had a booth since 2005. Maurice Gleeson will talk about the Dublin event later in the day.

Alice Fairhurst shared that 358 people attended DNA Day at SCGS Jamboree. The SCGS Jamboree usually has attendance of around 1,500-1,700. This is a new movement for public DNA conferences instead of relying on project administrators. Alice reminded us that there will be a DNA Conference on August 16-17, 2014 in Washington, D.C. CeCe Moore said that a site will be forthcoming. Alice stressed that she is happy to see something happening on the east coast as well as the west coast.

In 2006 the YSNP tree was started in 2006. At that time, we were primarily getting SNPs from academic papers. Alice gave us some numbers that really show the growth!

Year # of SNPs
2006 436
2008 790
2010 935
2012 2067
Sept 2013 3610
Announced by David Mittelman yesterday 25,000

The Y Team had a meeting last night. In the past they’ve been able to associate each SNP to an academic paper but they will likely not be able to keep that up. Individual SNPs would be a work level that no one can keep up with. Everyone is a volunteer.

On July 20-25, 2014, CeCe Moore, Debbie Parker Wayne, and Blaine Bettinger will teach a course entitled Practical Genetic Genealogy at the Genealogical Research Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Full Article Here:

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/archives/821

Enter your email address to start receiving this blog in your inbox

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Highlights From the 9th Family Tree DNA Conference in Houston Day One

Since I’ve already seen Tim Janzen’s Autosomal Mapping presentation and mostly because Roberta Estes is so awesome, I chose to attend her presentation How toFind Your Indian Prince(ss) Without Having to Kiss Too Many Frogs. Roberta says that where there is smoke, there may be fire. It may not be what you think or where you think because stories lose “facts” with each generational retelling.

Historically, “Indians” and “Blacks” were viewed as one because they were people of color. Once held in slavery, freedom had to be approved by the state governing body. Manumitted slaves, Indian, black, or mixed people were second class citizens. They could not own land, vote, testify against whites and were taxed at a higher rate. Tribal Indians were often invisible because they were not taxed. Treaties led to Indian reservations and group land ownership. Until 1835, some Indians and mixed race people could vote, go to school and testify in court.

European expansion led to Indians being pushed off of land. Treaties were broken. Indians were assimilated and removed. The saying “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” was a real thing. In 1830 Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act forcing removal west of the Mississippi. Indians enslaved were admixed and the same status as other slaves. Disease and assimilation had decimated the eastern tribes. Mixed race people were often, but not always, considered to be “of color”. Tribes lived on reservations and did not pay taxes.

During removal, only Indians on reservations had to go. Mixed race people not on reservations did not have to leave. Indians living on private land did not have to leave. Rolls were taken, but not everyone participated. Cherokees believed the Treaty of Echota was illegal because it was not ratified by the tribe. Being “Indian” was not a good thing in the 1830s and fear was rampant. In 1838 after the Trail of Tears, some of the survivors NEVER spoke again.

Assimilation began as early as Jamestown in 1614 with Pocahontas. Her name was Matoaka and she was baptized and renamed Rebecca Rolfe. Bride ships didn’t arrive until 1620. Assimilation started with slavery. Traders had “Country Wives” in every village that made trading easier. It was a status symbol for females because they got English goods. The Native custom was that when a traveler came, they provided them with a bed mate for the night. This was usually one of the young women who are referred to as “Trader girls”. There was also assimilation with the trader’s slaves. People were kidnapped all the time. This kidnapping went on between tribes, slaves, and whites. Captives were often adopted. There were also traditional marriages and generally the female was Native and the male was European. Roberta does not know of any that were the other way around.

In 1819, one third of white Cherokee tribal members reported to be white females captured as children. In 1835 removal rolls, 211 whites were recorded as “married in” and another 100 were living with the Cherokee. In the 1835 removal rolls, 23% of the tribe was listed as “admixed”.

Indian Princess Grandmas might be admixed through slavery. They might be admixed through assimilation prior to the 1830s or through tribal assimilation. They might have been tribal members in the 1830s. There are rolls from 1830s forward.

Full article here:

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/archives/801

© History Chasers Click here to view all recent Historical Melungeons Blog posts

Enter your email address to start receiving this blog in your inbox