Wednesday, 7 November 2007 -- D-OGS Meeting TOPIC: "Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors" Speaker: Lisa Alther Lisa Alther, the author of several books, just published her first non-fiction book "Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors". Her story begins with her childhood and involved travels through the South and to several countries in search of the truth of her origins, including a DNA test to confirm her suspicions. Lisa finds answers about her origins but many mysteries remain. An extremely provocative element in Alther's search revolves around boogie-man stories from childhood about Melungeons. She heard they had six fingers on each hand. As a child, she didn't know if this was true, or if Melungeons existed. Haunted by this mystery, she began trying to learn all she could and met a man in southwest Virginia who, indeed, was born with six fingers on each hand who showed her scars from surgery to remove the sixth finger; he turned out to be a distant cousin of hers. As Alther says, "Conflicting origin of stories for the Melungeons abound. They're said to be descended from Indians who mated with early Spanish explorers, or from the survivors of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony on Roanoke Island, or from Portuguese sailors shipwrecked on the Carolina coast, or from African slaves who escaped into the mountains." Her newly-discovered cousin thought they had Turkish ancestry. After traveling the South and Turkey and other parts of the world for extensive research, Alther concludes she is Melungeon, especially after having a DNA test which showed all her genetic make-up. D-OGS Meeting will be held on: Wednesday evening, 7 November 2007 at 7 p.m. Duke Homestead Visitor's Center 2828 Duke Homestead Road, Durham 27705 Phone: (919) 477-5498 One-half mile from I-85 and Guess Rd (Exit 175) Follow the brown historic site road signs. A Map! http://tinyurl.com/3mbuj Another Map! http://tinyurl.com/4gnkm ********************************