lineages

The type of methemoglobinemia the Fugate family exhibited was inherited genetically.  Beginning the family line when Martin Fugate emigrated to the United States of America from France as an orphan where he met and married Elizabeth Smith, a red-haired American girl.  The couple settled in eastern Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains on the shores of Troublesome Creek. There they had seven children, four of which had blue tinted skin.  Although only four of the children exhibited blue tinted skin, most of the children carried at least one recessive allele, which can be passed on in future generations causing descendants to inherit methemoglobinemia.  The residents along the banks of Troublesome Creek continued to settle in the same area for many generations in which neighbors married each other regardless of their relation; causing cousins to marry cousins, which resulted in inbreeding allowing the recessive alleles that code for methemoglobinemia to carry on to future generations.