The Origins of the Melungeons

Melungeon is a term applied to many people of the Southeastern United States, mainly in the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia: East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and East Kentucky. The most common adjective used to describe the Melungeons is “mysterious;” no one seems to know where the Melungeons originated. The Melungeons often did not fit into any of the racial categories that define an individual or group within American society; their neighbors considered them neither white, black, nor Indian.

The Melungeons appear to be of mixed ancestry, and contradictory claims about the origins of these people have existed for centuries. Most modern-day descendants of Melungeon families are generally Caucasian in appearance, often, although not always, with dark hair and eyes, and a swarthy or olive complexion. Descriptions of Melungeons vary widely from observer to observer, from "Middle Eastern" to "Native American" to "light-skinned African American."

A common belief about the Melungeons of east Tennessee was that they were an indigenous people of Appalachia, existing there before the arrival of the first white settlers. Many Melungeons believed that their ancestors have lived in the hills since the 1500s or early 1600s. Some claimed to be both Indian and Portuguese. One early Melungeon was called "Spanish" ("Spanish Peggy" Gibson, wife of Vardy Collins). Such claims were questionable, however. Because of the social problems associated with race, many Southern families with multiracial ancestry claimed Portuguese and/or American Indian (specifically Cherokee) ancestry as a strategy for denying African ancestry.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, speculation on Melungeon origins produced tales of shipwrecked sailors, lost colonists of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origin, hoards of silver, and ancient peoples such as the Carthaginians, Turkish, and even Sephardi (Iberian) Jews.

In the past twenty years or so, genealogists have documented through tax, court, census and other colonial, late 18th and early 19th century records that the ancestors of today's Melungeons migrated into the region from Virginia and Kentucky. This evidence seems to refute earlier claims that the Melungeons were a "lost tribe" from Portugal or some other European nation that had arrived in the 1500s or 1600s.

Dr. Kevin Jones carried out a DNA study on Melungeons in 2000, using 130 hair and cheek cell samples. The results were vague: Jones concluded that the Melungeons are mostly Eurasian, a catchall category spanning people from Scandinavia to the Middle East. He also found these people to be a little bit black and a little bit American Indian.

More recently, Jack Goins started a Melungeon DNA Project, with the goal of studying the ancestry of hypothesized Melungeon lines. So far, Y chromosomal DNA testing of male subjects with the Melungeon surnames Collins, Gibson, Gill, Goins, Bunch, Bolin, Goodman, Stowers, Williams, Minor, and Moore has revealed evidence of European and sub-Saharan African ancestry. Such findings appear to verify the early designation of Melungeon ancestors as "mulattos," that is, descendants of white Europeans and Africans. Many of the Melungeons, but not all, have DNA haplogroups that show roots in Portugal, Spain, and Italy. These people likely are descendants of enslaved or servant people in the Chesapeake Bay colony with European fathers connected to the African slave trade run by Spain and Portugal.

You can find much more information about the Melungeons at http://www.melungeons.com, http://melungeon-historical-society.blogspot.com, and at http://www.geocities.com/ourmelungeons/front.html. Information about the Melungeon DNA Project can be found at http://www.jgoins.com/core_melungeon.htm.

Comments

[Donna Messerly]

I am forever amazed at the miracles of today's science and technology. Imagine being able to trace a DNA line to learn more about this fascinating people.

[Ann L. Snowhook]

Is it possible the Jackson Whites reputedly living in the Adirondacks are related or an extension or related to these more southern people? My grandfather told me they were blacks - escaped slaves - poor whites and Jmerican Indians.

[J.H.Schroeter]

The 'Jackson Whites' live in the Ramapo Mountains in downstate NY, not the Adirondacks. They are more probably descendants of free mixed race people of African/Dutch heritage who fled more populated regions of New Netherlands after the English took over. They also have an admixture of Native American and and others who fled 'civilisation' for thr mountains. Many JW families still carry old Dutch surnames.Jay Schroeter

[A. Middlebrooke]

I have seen a book about the Melungeons at Clayton Library in Houston. I don't know the full name of it but it is in the United States section and has "Melungeons" in the title.

[Roberta Schultze]

I have "heard" about the Melungeons for several decades now,and always attributed their so-called origin from "lost tribe of Israel" to ancient Welsh as being absolute nonsense. Recently in ARCHAELOGY magazine there was an article about "lost" Spanish settlements forts etc. founded around the time of De Soto, in or around the area referred to in this article.

[Jade]

Dick, thank you very much for this summary, specifically the note that "Because of the social problems associated with race, many Southern families with multiracial ancestry claimed Portuguese and/or American Indian (specifically Cherokee) ancestry as a strategy for denying African ancestry."

In my West Virginian ancestral explorations I have encountered many variants on this story, although I have not yet been able to discover the exact roots of my presumed slave ancestry.

This observation points to the socio-political basis of significant amounts of "family lore," such as were published in the subscription biographies in publications of the late 19th and early 20th centuries ("mug books" often called /County Histories/ and /Portrait and Biographical Albums/).

For example, a published sketch of one of my distant cousins claims descent in his paternal line from Jamestown settlement, although the person who supplied this substituted the cousin's great-grandfather's name for his grandfather's. The ggf had moved to WV from Delaware in 1796, perhaps not as popular an origin during the Jim Crow era as that from Old Virginia.

[Vickie Brown (I took back my maiden name)]

I am related to the Brown family from Noxville Tenn area. I don't know much about my fathers distant relatives. They have the dark skin and hair. I'm understanding now why not much was known about them.

[Judy Kilpatrick]

My grandmother's parents were from eastern Tennessee. My grandmother and her siblings had dark hair and olive skin. Four of my grandmother's six children also had the dark skin and hair. My mother is not one of them. However, one of my sisters (who is blond and blue-eyed) has a condition that is generally found only in individuals from the mid-east: alphathalasemia. In fact, even though we have not been diagnosed with any disorder, at least several members of my family have been diagnosed with low hemoglobin almost all our lives. I was once told by my doctor that my hemoglobin was so slow it was in my shoes. She said I shouldn't even be able to get out of bed in the morning. I just smiled, hopped off the examining table and told her I felt fine, that I was working a full-time job and going to school full time, so whatever was wrong wasn't wrong for me. And it never has been. Since my sister was diagnosed with alphathalasemia I have wondered if I have it, too, but no symptoms that cause me negative results.

We have no known history of Melungeon ancestry, but ever since I learned of the Melungeons I have felt that I have answers for long-held questions: like where did the olive skin come from, and now, why the alphathalasemia.

I can trace my ancestors back to the 1600s on all four of my grandparents' lines of ancestry. For the most part, my ancestors lived in Washington County, Virginia and eastern Tennessee for a couple hundred years or more.

My olive-skinned grandmother's parents were Lowe and Miller.

Besides the olive skin, my grandmother's people have noses that look Jewish or mid-eastern, as well. But no family history of mid-eastern origin.

Judy
www.madeofcotton.com (my ancestry website)