Long time Melungeon List Member Patty Baldwin started a mailing list to discuss family treasures and heirlooms. The list is no longer active, but here is a picture of her Levantine sash.

Original picture title:
Patty Baldwin has a Levant Waist Sash of Turkish / Portuguese origin that has been in her family for over four hundred years. The Sash has it's ethnic roots in the Levant section of the Mediterranean . It is quite a mystery how it lasted, still intact within her family for over 400 years. Her family is of Melungeon / 'Portyghee' ancestry.


Brent Kennedy, author of the book
The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People
and Darlene Wilson, creator of the Melungeon Homepage, at Third Union in Wise, VA, Summer, 2000.

Jimmy Bartram, a young Melungeon man showing our mixed heritage. Contributed by his mother,
Kelly Bartram.

Joe Showalter's mother at age 18.


This beautiful "Black Irish" lady is Cora Belle BLACKBURN BRANTLEY. She was born Aug. 20, 1891 and died Sept. 4, 1916. She had two children, Jesse Benjamin and Bertha Mae. "Cory" as she was called was married to Daniel Marion BRANTLEY. She is the Grandmother of Melungeon list member Joseph W. Hastings. Thanks for sharing Joe! Visit Joe's Place for more genealogy:

Joshua F. PERKINS vs. John R. WHITE

An 1857 slander trial in
Johnson County TN