3 of 10 isnt good enough; think of how high you wouldve finished on this list had more of you ditched class to head to the hills on Friday mornings like a lot of your friends. "But if you're marrying your cousin, it's one in eight. By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. it is a blood disorder in which their blood does not oxygenate correctly. He had to drive eight hours back to Hazard to search out the Ritchies, who lived in a tapped-out mining town called Hardburly. "If you took any random person in the population, maybe one in 100,000 would carry this gene, if that many," says Ricki Lewis, a science writer and author of the textbook "Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications," now in its 13th edition. Benjy was born in a maternity ward near Hazard, Kentucky and was rushed by ambulance to a medical clinic in Lexington to find help for his blue problem. After ruling out heart and lung diseases, the doctor suspected methemoglobinemia, a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methemoglobin in the blood. Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Ask the Explainer. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky - who can trace their roots back to a French orphan - started producing children who were blue. In normal people hemoglobin is converted to methemoglobin at a very slow rate. Its post office is closed in 1935. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. Oxygen, or a lack of oxygen, is what turns the blood from red to blue in people with methemoglobinemia. The methylene blue he used on them is a dye a blue dye, ironically. Theyre prominently featured in reality television. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! Levels at or above 70% are considered life-threatening and are accompanied by erratic heartbeats and circulatory problems. Habitat: Thick shrubbery and areas with tall trees. They were delighted., They changed colors! remembered Pendergrass. 5 years ago when I was on a swingerparty she got pregnant with me. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. "That's crazy.". The Fugate Family of Russell County, Virginia: A Genealogy of the Descendants of Francis, Benjamin, Colbert, Zachariah, Henley & William Fugate, Settlers of Moccasin Valley from 1772. In 1820, Martin Fugate, who is believed to have been blue, moved to Troublesome Creek from France and just happened to shack up with Elizabeth Smith, who also carried the gene. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. Wingspan: 6.3-8.3 in (Black-Capped), 5.9-7.9 in (Carolina) Chickadees are tiny little birds that are very easy to recognize because of their "black cap" and black bib. The search for blue people ensued. Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University in Morgantown (old gold and blue are the official University colors); photo by Swimmerguy269 on Wikipedia (use permitted with attribution / share alike). Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. You know theres lots of rednecks here when you look at the numbers. Scott's research had found hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians caused by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. In online research, there was no mention made of "blue" people as recorded in the genealogy book, The Fugate Family of Russell County Virginia, published in 1986, but it has been confirmed in the Fugate discussions on the Genforum. Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter 3: Political Maneuvering Chapter 4: The Creative Act of 1919 Chapter 5: Getting Organized PART II Chapter 6: The Mine Wars, 1919-1929 Chapter 7: Depression and Recovery, 1929-1939 Chapter 8: War Service, 1939-1949 All rights reserved. Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. The area was never. Big deal, ive got an extra thumb, and twelve toes, but at least my parents didnt know they were twins until after they had me. It was really something exciting to see.. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . It like to scared me to death! They were like any other 1800s family except theyliked inbreeding. The solution, oddly enough, was a commonly used dye called methylene blue. She had been out in the cold and she was just blue! recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. If their blood had a lower concentration of methemoglobin, they might only blush blue in cold weather, while people with higher concentrations of methemoglobin were bright blue from head to toe. So close! Benjamin Stacy was the last of the Fugate family members to have blue skin and lived a healthy life. She was one of the "blue" Combses who lived up on Ball Creek and was a sister to one of the Fugate women; her brother, Luke, was also blue. Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. Admitted to the union as the 35th state in 1863, it is a relatively small state. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. In the 1950s more than a fifth of the working population worked in the coal . It began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. It can be brought on by several things: abnormal hemoglobin formation, an enzyme deficiency, and taking too much of certain drugs, including vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting and is abundant in pork liver and vegetable oil. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3','ezslot_0',606,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3-0');Using that criteria, its not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in West Virginia, and then put out a list. Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. If theyd immigrated to other areas, even other areas of Kentucky, they likely would have married non-relatives, and the condition would have faded out of the family long before it did. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. his wife happened to be a carrier for the gene, so in turn about half of their children were blue. Google Maps, Cowboy Up Bar, Bluefield, WV. Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. We just have our own way of life. This genetic defect comes from a rare recessive gene, so most people arent affected by it unless they happen to reproduce with another person who carries it. When you look at the numbers, its clear that most of Moundsville is a buncha fun-lovin rednecks. February 16, 2012 by Tap Vann. ELVIS SEEN AT GRACELAND ON HIS 85th BIRTHDAY! But by 3 years old and . Population: 18,763Bars per capita: 6th in West VirginiaFishing/bait shops per capita: 4thMobile home parks per capita: 5th. Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. 2019 Foreign-Born Population 30.2k people As of 2020, 1.64% of West Virginia residents (29.6k people) were born outside of the United States, which is lower than the national average of 13.5%. blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) Have you ever heard of the blue people of Kentucky? Google Maps. Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is: A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.. One of the supermarket tabloids once sent a reporter to find out about the blue people, and she was distressed with his preoccupation with intermarriages. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured. New Martinsville has the 2nd most places to buy guns, the 2nd most fishing/bait shops and several places to get chew. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. I'm going to assume that by blu. Due to all this inbreeding, there were a lot of blue people running around the backwoods of Kentucky. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. The Appalachian region of the US is a beautiful place with a rich and sometimes tragic history. Edit Old Gold & Blue Page We do not feel less-fortunate. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjys birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. She was a sister to one of the Fugate women. About this same time, another of the blue Combses, named Luke, had taken his sick wife up to the clinic at Lexington. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. It wasn't always this way. He tested first for abnormal hemoglobin, but the results were negative. West Virginia Get facts and photos about the 35th state. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. This then turns the carriers blood into a normal red hue which is then reflected in a change in skin tone. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. Which means lots of weekend warriors probably live here; its the families that have boats and who book nice family hunting trips. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. The Fugates are of French Huguenot descent, with the original immigrant ancestor coming over from France in about 1820. What is a redneck anyways? After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in West Virginia: Many of these are types of places where old redneck ladies drive their motorized wheelchairs down the middle of town, towing their grandkids in a wagon. These people arent related to the Fugates: Also fake. 11 HINTS YOU MIGHT BE DESCENDED FROM ALIENS, FUGATES OF KENTUCKY: SKIN BLUER THAN LAKE LOUISE As My World Turns, If Your Skin Is Blue, Dont Marry Your Other Blue Shaded Relative interesting12, Daily News investigates: Mystery of family with blue skin solved | Bazaar Daily News, If Your Skin Is Blue, Don't Marry Your Other Blue Shaded Relative - interesting12. Most lived to their 80s and 90s without serious illness associated with the skin discoloration. 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