The Tribe of Munch
(Author's note: This is one wild tale. Lost Ancestry? Babies hidden away? An undiscovered race of people and vitriolic court cases? Greed and grave robbers and buried treasure? I mean, does it get any better than that?)
As always, unapologetically unedited. Warning: AI says this is poorly written. Screw AI and the algorithm it came in on.
I.
There was no reason for me not to have seen it. I mean, it's been there all along. I suppose it's like anything else; even in genealogy, you get lazy. You make assumptions like, 'There's not gonna be anything interesting to see here...' So you move on. In defense of the wannabe genealogist, there are just so many branches to move through, so many to untangle. There are so many people with so many amazing stories to tell.
I guess I saw it right after she'd called. That is my friend Paige, or Munch, as I think she prefers to be called. It seems funny to say that, to call her "friend" that is, but indeed I think that's what we are now, or at least what we're becoming. She's so supportive without being intimidating. And she asks me those tough questions that I find hard to answer. I admit it too. I like it when people call me out on my shit. It's been good getting to know her. Plus, she allows me the bonus feature of being able to bag a bit on my uber mensch cousin Dan. Dan, a great guy and a generally incredible person who stole out of the high end of our community gene pool. Go figure that that young soul should be related to this old fool.
After Paige called, I really started looking in the "back branches" of her tree. She'd said something about African ancestry, about a somehow or somewhat forgotten mulatto baby, and well, I love a genealogical challenge. Because of this, well, I wanted to scratch in the sandbox a little more. It wasn't that I thought I could learn more about this forgotten child somewhere amongst the tropes of her ancestral branches. No, it was more because I wanted an origin story for Munch. I use the term "story" here lightly. I wanted to find whatever African truth was that she could feel calling to her from some distant corner of her own gene pool. It was so curious to me. Indeed, it was also quite precious...
I very nearly had it too. Oh, she's right about it - whatever it is that's calling to her from that distant corner. It's out there. It's the seventeenth century. It's Virginia. And for me, it started with his name. His name was Edward Mozingo, a guy reportedly in Paige's family tree.
I mean, is that cool or what? The whole name thing of being a Mozingo.
It's so primal. I had to know more.
Okay, I gottta stop here. You see, the thing is that there is a lot of bunk ancestry out there. There's a TON of copy-and-paste genealogy. You find it everywhere, like some kind of powdery mildew infection that, while it doesn't attack the root, it attacks the branches and leaves of the tree. It's up to the genealogist to figure out what's real or what isn't real, and to prove (or disprove) it out - at least to the best of their ability.
It's the original story we're after, i.e., the truth.
Now, all of us have this "rot" in our family trees. For most of us, you will more often than not find yourself 'configured' somewhere along the way as a "third cousin twelve times removed" to Anne Boleyn, Eleanor of Aquitaine's chamber maid, or frickin' Oliver Cromwell. Not to get all racist here, but these are typical "white people" ideologues of who we want to be descended from. They are who we wish we were descended from. Maybe there was some old genealogical rumor somewhere that grandma couldn't quite prove that connected us to say "Prince Albert," so somewhere along the line, someone extrapolated it and linked us back to Robespierre or some dude from the Knights Templar. Again, maybe true, maybe not. But again, all this "white people's wishful thinking" are things usually found in white people's family trees.
You don't find or see a white woman of notable southern ancestry, where her very white ancestry connects to African Royalty. Yes, a woman like Munch.
Enter Edward Mozingo.
Enter Munch.
Now we will get to whether it is true or not, or how the Hell it got there in the first place, in a second. First, though, I want to return to the idea that it's there in her family tree in the first place. You see, even if untrue or patently false, even if impossible to prove out, it begs the question:
"What the fuck is Edward Mozingo and his links to Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba doing in Paige's family tree in the first place?" I mean, Wtf? Right?
II.
Well, I have to ask, don't I?
I mean, this seemed strange to me - despite Paige's comment that "All southerners have some African American ancestry back in their family tree." I guess I took her to simply mean that somewhere along the way there one would, unfortunately but obviously, find the "master and slave rape tale," or, if lucky, maybe one of unrequited or forbidden love on the plantation. You know, your basic colonial Ante-bellum stuff. So how was it, or how could this be?
As usual, I am getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about Edward Mozingo (1644-1712) before we go and try to connect him to Queen Nzinga. Let's get "Old Ed" connected to Paige first - or try to. First off, there is a lot more information about Edward Mozingo than I could have ever expected there to be. There are several books written about him. I will do my best to summarize here:
All right, I think you can see the picture.
And while submitted family trees link this VERY REAL man to Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba, (and some to Paige) I understand that this is only a rumor and that there is no evidence to support it. Still, as with the white folks above wishing they were Anne Boleyn's third cousin twelve times removed - I think it's kind of awesome to even have a rumor of a legit African Queen in the White Witch's tree.
It's very unique. It's very Munch. lol.
However, getting from Edward Mozingo to Paige and proving it, well, that was going to be a little more difficult than just accepting a rumor on WikiTree as a fun and unverifiable "fact." Oddly enough, however, I could verify several generations coming down from Edward Mozingo. I could verify him down to Edward Mozingo's great-great-great-granddaughter, a woman by the name of Rachel Davis. In the other direction, I can easily verify that Paige is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Martha Simmerman, who married James Monroe Carter. Mrs. Martha Simmerman Carter was the granddaughter of, you guessed it, a woman named Rachel Davis.
On the surface, it seemed like I was halfway home.
My problem was Rachel Davis. Published sources showed that Paige's ancestor, "Rachel Davis," had married a "Solomon Bolton." The records for Edward Mozingo's "Rachel Davis" (and the fun facts of a legendary African Queen in the ready-mix) showed that that Rachel had married someone else.
WTF!??
So does the line from "Munch to Mozingo" fall apart? Yes, on the surface it does. Remember, though - only on the surface.
I went back and took another look at "our" Rachel Davis. Remember, "Our Gal Rachel" married a guy named Solomon Bolton. So if this part of the pedigree to Mozingo and African Ancestry for Munch was going to get all wonky, what could I learn about Our Gal Rachel through her husband of record, the dashing and talented "Solomon Bolton (1791-1868)?"
It was then that I saw Solomon Bolton (who would be, in fact, very much Paige's direct ancestor) described as:
"Of Melungeon origins...."
Okay, I give up. What the flock is "Melungeon?" Why are you calling my friend Paige some funky-ass name? lol.
Well, I like visuals, so check this out below:
Okay, so Paige's ancestor Solomon Bolton (who married Rachel Davis) was described as a "Mulungeon."
But wait, it gets better.
Solomon Bolton and his lovely bride, Rachel Davis, had a daughter whose name is Jemima Bolton. Jemima Bolton married Jerome Simmerman. They are Paige's four-times great-grandparents. Check out this interesting story about Jemima:
And then all Hell broke loose:
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