"Passing" is a phenomenon that I don't think has gotten enough academic attention. I know that part of the reason for that would be the problems encountered in interviewing those who would admit to it or who would admit that their families have done it. I am interested in "passing" as a phenomenon partly because I have Melungeon ancestry from the community near Phillippi, West Virginia, on my mother's side and yet-undetermined American Indian heritage on my father's side. My mother's family, some of whom are still quite dark even in my generation, have been much fiercer about hiding and denying the Melungeon ancestry. (My mother's maternal grandmother's father fled Grafton, West Virginia, with his family following the murder of a teenage son around 1900. He took the family to Fayetteville, NC, and then, a few years later, migrated to Washington, DC.) My father's family has generally ignored the mixed ancestry, though some have claimed Jewish ancestry. It took several sometimes loud family verbal disputes, but I finally established that I'm not claiming any "Cherokee princesses." (While white women in the South rarely owned anything on their own, Cherokee women, and other American Indian women in the South, "owned" their houses as they were members of a matrilineal society. See Theda Perdue.) My father's family were clergy in the Methodist church (Methodist Episcopal Church, South) from about 1800 to 1935, and some cousins are clergy in the United Methodist Church. My paternal great-grandfather's paternal grandfather migrated from Wake County (Raleigh), NC, to western South Carolina ca. 1800, then recently Cherokee territory, and not far from Creek/Yuchi territory. Elizabeth Whitaker Paul Heinegg wrote: > Anyone interested in researching this subject should take note that > there was a very light-skinned, free African American family named > Harden in Sampson County, North Carolina, during the colonial period > that was culturally white. > Paul ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html