Sandman, you're scraping the barrel now. I know Michael Gove said we've all had enough of experts, and that there are always 'alternative facts' available to suit your argument, so if you want to take newspaper journalism over peer-reviewed research, that's up to you. Others may take a different view, however.

'What we all really want to know is: did Cecil shag Maud?'

This is not what 'we all want to know', because anyone who knows anything about the people concerned knows it's utter nonsense: grubby prurience that shows scant respect for Maud Karpeles, never mind Sharp. Heads should be hung in shame for printing that. Only Jim Moray comes out of this article with credit.

'irwin says 16 per cent of appachians were black

The figure quoted in the article is actually 13%, but the figure for Madison County, where Sharp spent much of the first trip, for instance, was considerably lower. I've already explained that Sharp and Karpeles were directed to areas where the population was overwhelmingly English / Scots-Irish, because their priority was to find British folk songs. I've gone over my notes and will post some figures about the origin of the songs they collected when I have more time.