 sj |
||
|
||
BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons
|
|
|
|||||||
|
BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: Sawzaw Date: 25 May 12 - 01:24 PM DNA study seeks origin of Appalachia's Melungeons 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. "There were a whole lot of people upset by this study," lead researcher Roberta Estes said. "They just knew they were Portuguese, or Native American." Beginning in the early 1800s, or possibly before, the term Melungeon (meh-LUN'-jun) was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border. But it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry. In recent decades, interest in the origin of the Melungeons has risen dramatically with advances both in DNA research and in the advent of Internet resources that allow individuals to trace their ancestry without digging through dusty archives. G. Reginald Daniel, a sociologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara who's spent more than 30 years examining multiracial people in the U.S. and wasn't part of this research, said the study is more evidence that race-mixing in the U.S. isn't a new phenomenon. "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. [Related: The blue Fugates of Kentucky] Claims of Portuguese ancestry likely were a ruse they used in order to remain free and retain other privileges that came with being considered white, according to the study's authors. The study quotes from an 1874 court case in Tennessee in which a Melungeon woman's inheritance was challenged. If Martha Simmerman were found to have African blood, she would lose the inheritance. Her attorney, Lewis Shepherd, argued successfully that the Simmerman's family was descended from ancient Phoenicians who eventually migrated to Portugal and then to North America. Writing about his argument in a memoir published years later, Shepherd stated, "Our Southern high-bred people will never tolerate on equal terms any person who is even remotely tainted with negro blood, but they do not make the same objection to other brown or dark-skinned people, like the Spanish, the Cubans, the Italians, etc." In another lawsuit in 1855, Jacob Perkins, who is described as "an East Tennessean of a Melungeon family," sued a man who had accused him of having "negro blood." In a note to his attorney, Perkins wrote why he felt the accusation was damaging. Writing in the era of slavery ahead of the Civil War, Perkins noted the racial discrimination of the age: "1st the words imply that we are liable to be indicted (equals) liable to be whipped (equals) liable to be fined ... " Later generations came to believe some of the tales their ancestors wove out of necessity. Jack Goins, who has researched Melungeon history for about 40 years and was the driving force behind the DNA study, said his distant relatives were listed as Portuguese on an 1880 census. Yet he was taken aback when he first had his DNA tested around 2000. Swabs taken from his cheeks collected the genetic material from saliva or skin cells and the sample was sent to a laboratory for identification. "It surprised me so much when mine came up African that I had it done again," he said. "I had to have a second opinion. But it came back the same way. I had three done. They were all the same." In order to conduct the larger DNA study, Goins and his fellow researchers — who are genealogists but not academics — had to define who was a Melungeon. In recent years, it has become a catchall term for people of mixed-race ancestry and has been applied to about 200 communities in the eastern U.S. — from New York to Louisiana. Among them were the Montauks, the Mantinecocks, Van Guilders, the Clappers, the Shinnecocks and others in New York. Pennsylvania had the Pools; North Carolina the Lumbees, Waccamaws and Haliwas and South Carolina the Redbones, Buckheads, Yellowhammers, Creels and others. In Louisiana, which somewhat resembled a Latin American nation with its racial mixing, there were Creoles of the Cane River region and the Redbones of western Louisiana, among others. The latest DNA study limited participants to those whose families were called Melungeon in the historical records of the 1800s and early 1900s in and around Tennessee's Hawkins and Hancock Counties, on the Virginia border some 200 miles northeast of Nashville. The study does not rule out the possibility of other races or ethnicities forming part of the Melungeon heritage, but none were detected among the 69 male lines and 8 female lines that were tested. Also, the study did not look for later racial mixing that might have occurred, for instance with Native Americans. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 25 May 12 - 01:51 PM I remember a course I took years ago at Univ. Texas in Physical Anthropology, a precurser to forensic anthropological studies which was a field I was considering for a profession. The professor gave a brief introduction and mentioned that mixed-race (White and Negro mixed-race jumped into our minds in the south-) was more common than most people thought. He gave a list of physical characteristics common to mixed-race, stopped, looked around the classroom at each one of us, then said "Hmmmm." There were a few nervous titters- Many forget the period when lighter mixed-race individuals considered "passing," or marrying lighter-skinned mates so that their children could "pass." I have no idea how many "passed." I changed direction toward the physical sciences, and never followed up studies in forensics, but they would have been very interesting. The work on genetics of melungeons is one small part of the studies ongoing around the world. As a group, the melungians may have a spectrum of characteristics at this date, but individuals should be determinable with a good deal of certainty. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 25 May 12 - 02:28 PM This all sounds horribly familiar. Rather like the time when apartheid ruled in S Africa and people were 'classified' according to the 'amount' of colour they appeared to have. And also rather like the Third Reich when only 'Aryans' were acceptable and even a 'taint' of Jewish blood was enough to condemn. I wonder why 'pure' blood is so interesting to people. I once knew a geneticist who told me that nearly all white people have traces of black and other ethnicities in their genes, and vice-versa. I suppose from a historical point of view it can be interesting to trace the migration of human populations around the world over many millenia. For instance, the folk in Shetland were thought to have Viking blood in their make-up, but recent tests showed this wasn't the case. So the attacking Norsemen didn't particularly fancy the Shetland ladies after all! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: gnu Date: 25 May 12 - 02:41 PM I don't think it sounds "horribly familiar" at at. I think it's exciting that we are developing the tools to discover our true MUTUAL history and I think such endeavours can only bring us to a better understanding of ourselves AND bring us closer together as human beings. Genocide still occurs but not so much based on skin colour as upon religion, wealth and land use. Having said that, I am no expert, in any way, shape or form. Just an observation. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 25 May 12 - 02:51 PM Very interesting is the genealogical series carried on NPR. Some of the traces based on genetic matching are amazing. I would agree with "exciting"- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The DNA truth about Melungeons From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 25 May 12 - 03:03 PM In our family, we are descendants of a man who came to America from England about 1750 (we even have his will), but have nothing to carry the line on back. He left no records so we only have a little hearsay. There are two possibilities, one a group in Dorset with the same odd name, and another in London, same name. It would be interesting to make the connection with one or the other. A member of another group with the same name reached New England in colonial times; I may be related, but not descended, from them. We may try for some gene matches. Interesting to me, but a dull study to others. |
