In my search for my Collins family history, I keep running into references to Portugal. Portugal is often referenced as a 'Mediterranean' country, when not one square inch touches the Mediterranean Sea, it's on the Atlantic Ocean.
If you run a Google search: "portuguese", "melungeon", you will find about 17,900 matches. These matches consist of theory, discussion, myth, copy/pastes, and lots of misinformation.
So far, I have found no connection between my family and Portugal, in fact I have no reason to believe they ever claimed 'Portyghee'. The only possible connection could be my first male Collins ancestor could have come from a Portuguese African Colony.
Researching Cultural roots of Mixed Bloods, is both interesting and can be complicated. So I set up a 'home made' system to examine the different ethnicity's / cultures / races. I call it 'Cultural Footprints' , consisting of language, the table (food), religion and music.
Researching the Portuguese 'cultural musical footprint' in 2006, I came across a Portuguese musical genre called 'Fado'. I can remember finding this video sung by the African born Fadista Marzia on YouTube. It was the first Fado I'd ever heard, it touched my soul, and I have been a Fado fan since that day. In fact, I'm listening to some Fado tunes as I am typing this. I have 21 Fado albums with 350 songs on my iPod. I really did become a fan. I even got to attend a Marzia concert in April of 2009 at the Lensic Theater up in Santa Fe, NM
"Musicologists have a lot of theories (of the origin of Fado) but we don't have a correct theory," Mariza, a well-known Fado singer, said by phone from her Lisbon home. "But I think the most correct one is that it's a mix between (the music of) African slaves and (Portuguese) sailors."
Below are two videos concerning the history of Fado:
Isso é meus 2 centavos
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