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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDNA study seeks origin of Appalachia's Melungeons
My note: This is an extremely interesting article and shows how DNA testing has solved so many old mysteries.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.
Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking. The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.
And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn't sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry.
<snip>
"All of us are multiracial," he said. "It is recapturing a more authentic U.S. history."
Estes and her fellow researchers theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery.
They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from Virginia through the Carolinas before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee.
http://news.yahoo.com/dna-study-seeks-origin-appalachias-melungeons-201144041.html
Uncle Joe
(58,362 posts)Thanks for the thread, monmouth.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)DNA evidence indicates the first Black President may have been Abraham Lincoln
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1156562
monmouth
(21,078 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Megalomania mainly a misinterpretation, per monmouth.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)BadgerKid
(4,552 posts)Solly Mack
(90,767 posts)carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Not that there is any reason to doubt Ms. Estes when she refers to a "whole lot" of resistance to the study's findings. One can certainly find evidence of such resistance online in various discussion sites. But I've never actually known a Melungeon who shares such attitudes. The Melungeon Heritage Association has long celebrated African American roots and featured African American historians. Keynote speaker for this year's annual gathering is Dr. Arwin Smallwood of the University of Memphis.
http://melungeon.ning.com/profiles/blogs/16th-union-home-to-the-hills-of-wise-county-plans-in-progress
kdmorris
(5,649 posts)I have long contended (if you saw my hair you would know why) that there was some African ancestry in my family. None of us burn easily and my hair is VERY curly and coarse. But alas, I've been unable to prove it!
snooper2
(30,151 posts)don't do it snooper, don't do it