I married into a Hall family...kind of around the back door. Even though my husband is a Spencer, my husbands' mother was a Hall and although she was always willing to talk to me about her family, nobody seems to know anything past her grandpa, James Henderson Hall, what his mother and father's name was, where they were from or anything else! I've come to the conclusion that we have Melungeon roots. I was told that they Hall kids weren't allowed to go to white schools because they were Indian, but after some research, I've found out they weren't accused of being Indian, they were accused of being "colored". I have only been able to find newspaper articles about it so far, the actually court case was granted a change of venue from Howell County, MO to Texas County, MO back in 1889 and I'm afraid those actual papers may be lost. The Texas County Court house burned back in the 1920's and my sister-in-law hasn't had any luck finding anything in Howell County....all that remains are the newspaper articles. They did say that the Hall's produced affidavits from older family members (that's the main reason I wanted the court cases...the "older Hall family member's" names) stating that they were of Portuguese decent and they were originally from a sea faring family who settled back east and did very well before they moved to Missouri. James Henderson Hall's military record says he was born in Bedford County, Tennessee. Has anyone else heard similar stories? Laura