New radio documentary about last summer's Melungeon gathering and DNA discoveries

[carolinayellowdog]

Mary Helen Miller, a producer/reporter for Chattanooga Public Radio station WUTC, attended the 16th Melungeon Union last summer and this week her 17 minute documentary on Melungeons became available online. She also wrote an article as companion to the documentary, available here.

[Little Star]

1. Interesting. Here's some famous people who are thought to be melungeon...

Abraham Lincoln, Tom Hanks, Elvis Presley, Heather Locklear, Ava Gardner, Steve Martin, Rich Mullins. They've got the eyes I think.

[carolinayellowdog]

2. Mullins is one of the most common Melungeon surnames; Locklear is Lumbee...

but occasionally in the 19th century the term "Melungeon" was applied to those now called "Lumbee" although never as consistently as the Virginia/Tennessee border mixed ancestry communities. Heather has Lumbee relatives in Robeson County and could enroll as a tribal member if she wished, I just read online. Don't know about the Hanks, Presley, and Gardner evidence, but Martin also seems Melungeon-related. He had a g grandfather in Texas who was labeled a "quadroon Indian" which would link him to the group called Redbone, akin to Melungeons by genealogical and DNA evidence.

Had not heard of Rich Mullins, went to his Wikipedia page, born in Indiana but looks very much like a Tennessee/Virginia Melungeon Mullins so I bet his roots are there.

[Little Star]

3. My maternal grandparents hail from the mountain region of North Georgia...

On my grandmother's side there is family lore that we have cherokee blood. I have hit walls in that line so haven't found anything that would support that yet.

But I do have a suspicion that we have Melungeon roots. We have some of the names that are on those lists like Stewart, Forrester Stanley & Weaver. Many of us seem to have 'that' color blue eyes that people talk about too. Maybe some day I'll be able to solve the puzzle or at least I hope so.

[carolinayellowdog]

4. Weavers relate to one of my big DNA puzzles-- profile shows South Asian but no Native American

Since you mention that family, I will go off on a tangent-- but first will say that Stewarts abound among the "Person County Indians" along the VA/NC line; I know several. Weavers are extremely fascinating because at least this famous line is neither European, African, nor Native American, but South Asian. Researcher Paul Heinegg has a great photo here.

Like many Melungeons, I have family lore of "Indian" and Mediterranean ancestors combined with unconvincing denial of African roots. And like Melungeons, the family lore identifications of specific Indian tribes or Mediterranean countries are vague and shifting. Also like many contemporary Melungeon researchers, the paper trail leads only to the British Isles and several lines of colonial "free mulattoes." No identifiable Indians, nor any identifiable African slaves... just brick walls.

For many people like those in the documentary, the big takeaway with DNA testing is "they said they were Native American, but this proves they were African." But for me that was precisely the expected result and my 1-2 percent African results fit the estimation based on my paper trail exactly. What was weird and unexpected and confirmed repeatedly is the presence of South Asian DNA not in the distant past but within the last 500 years. This can only point to Roma people-- "gypsies" were exported to Jamestown as undesirables-- or to a handful of East Indian families like the Weavers.

Weavers happened to settle in the county adjacent to my ancestors, and left descendants on the "black" side of the color line who keep coming up with more South Asian than African in their DNA tests! If you do 23andme (for example) and turn up consistent unexpected South Asian results, look into your Weaver lines. The people in the linked pic look more "Melungeon" to me than either "white" "black" or "Indian" historical photos, and prominent Melungeon authors like Brent Kennedy and Lisa Alther have reported significant percentages or matches of South Asian DNA. But I know only one person who has found a paper trail to these Weavers.