« Reply #17 on: July 30, 2010, 05:02:32 PM »
My understanding was that the Melungeon's were NOT mongrels, but were genetically closer than most bloodlines
I've heard the term 'tri-racial' used to describe them. There is an ongoing DNA study trying to trace roots and such. From what I have read, the main three races are White, Indian, and Black......with a little Spaniard and/or Portuguese and Scotch thrown in for good measure.
I guess some 'genetic closeness' could stem from their strict isolationism several hundred years ago.
A few generations ago, children in Tennessee, Virginia and surrounding areas were told, “If you don’t behave, the Melungeons will get you!” Many people grew up believing the Melungeons were simply an Appalachian version of the boogeyman – a fearsome and mysterious but mythical bit of folklore.
From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, occasional newspaper and magazine articles affirmed that the Melungeons were real and that they lived in isolation because of their mysterious ethnic heritage – presumed by non-Melungeons to be a mixture of white, black, and Indian. In the past decade, books, magazines, and (especially) the Internet have fed an increasing interest in Melungeons. Genealogists have traced many of the families, DNA studies have offered some tantalizing hints, but the story of the Melungeons remains – to use the term most often employed by journalists over the years – “mysterious.”
The Melungeons are a group of mixed ethnic ancestry first documented in northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. Similar groups of “mysterious” people, or at least remnants of these groups, are found all along the Atlantic seaboard. While these other groups have no known connection to the Melungeons, they have historically suffered similar problems due to the difficulty of placing them within an established racial category. Anthropologists called them “racial islands” or “tri-racial isolates.”
http://www.melungeon.org/node/4
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