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Archiver > Melungeon > 2002-06 > 1024543339


From: "Karlton Douglas" <>
Subject: Re: [Melungeon] Melungeon DNA Study Results
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 23:22:19 -0400
References: <002201c217f6$f15ea2e0$799a6444@nv.cox.net>


I can't honestly say I am disappointed it got released early, though I can
understand the doctor and those going to the Union being a bit disappointed.
I hope Mike will be able to give us his thoughts on the DNA when he gets
a chance.
I will say from what I understand of it I am very pleased. It looks like
many of us are vindicated in our belief that there was a tri-racial/ethnic
mix, along with some exotic as well.
I covered how some of this mixing may have taken place in my Remnant
Indians article:
http://www.angelfire.com/tn3/youngeagle/index2.html

I can honestly say I would not change anything in the article except for
including that the females that were in those Spanish colonies must have
contributed to the mix. I was focused on males as there appeared to have
been more males via soldiers and missionaries. Of course the males won't
show in the mtDNA. I am very impressed that we got so much info just from
the one side: mtDNA. And that for the group tested it appears to show what
many have believed. It confirms my own thoughts as far as the genetic mix.
Well, what do the rest of you think?
Blessings.
Karlton

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Maggard" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 9:07 PM
Subject: [Melungeon] Melungeon DNA Study Results


> The Associated Press having mistakenly released a story about the
> Melungeon DNA study results a day early, I have received permission
> to go ahead and post the results of the study here, see below, preceded
> by a statement correcting the Associated Press story.
>
> Dennis Maggard
>
>
> Statement by Wayne Winkler,
> President of the Melungeon Heritage Association................
>
> The Associated Press mistakenly released the story of the DNA study a day
> early. We regret that, after two years of hard work, Dr. Kevin Jones was
not
> permitted to break the news of his study himself. The story by Chris Kahn
> also
> contained a few inaccuracies. First, the hair samples taken to study
> mitochondrial DNA, tracing the maternal lines, were taken from men as well
> as
> women, contrary to the statement in the story. Secondly, Brent Kennedy was
> quoted out of context in saying that Melungeons weren't much different
from
> other Americans. In context, he was saying that ALL Americans are mixed to
> some
> degree, although not necessarily as much as are Melungeons. And finally, I
> think the story missed the important news: that women were a part of the
> original Turkish, Mediterranean, and northern Indian population that came
to
> America. We've always heard the stories about shipwrecked sailors or
> explorers
> being the source of our overseas genes; it's now obvious that these genes
> came,
> at least in part, from family units of men and women who were attempting
to
> establish themselves in a new land. As the DNA study shows, they
succeeded.
>
>
> Press release of the Melungeon Heritage Association..................
>
> Kingsport, Tennessee, June 20, 2002 - Some of the veil of mystery
> surrounding the "mysterious" Melungeons was lifted today when the results
of
> a two-year DNA study were announced. New questions have been raised,
> however, concerning females potentially from Turkey and northern India who
> are a part of the Melungeon ancestry.
>
> The Melungeons are a group of people of unknown origin first documented in
> the mountains of Appalachia in the early 19th century. Many believed they
> were of mixed racial ancestry and the Melungeons faced legal and social
> discrimination. As a result, they tended to live in remote areas, most
> notably Newman's Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee. In the 1940's and
1950'
> s, sociologists and anthropologists labeled the Melungeons and other
similar
> groups as "tri-racial isolates."
>
> Over the years, numerous myths, legends, and theories evolved to explain
> the Melungeons' mysterious origins. These legends often involved sailors
and
> explorers from Spain, Portugal, Carthage, or Phoenicia who were stranded
on
> the American continent and intermarried with Indians. The Melungeons
> themselves often claimed to be "Portyghee." Most researchers believed they
> were a product of intermarriage between English and Scots-Irish settlers,
> Indians, and free African-Americans, and discounted their claims of
> Mediterranean origin.
>
> The DNA results announced today confirmed that the Melungeons have
> European, African, and Native American ancestry, as well as genetic
> similarities with populations in Turkey and northern India. More
surprising,
> however, is the fact that some of these Turkish- and northern Indian- like
> sequences have been passed through the Melungeons' maternal lines,
> indicating that their overseas ancestors included not only male sailors
and
> explorers, but females as well.
>
> The results were announced today at Fourth Union, a Melungeon conference
in
> Kingsport, Tennessee sponsored by the Melungeon Heritage Association
(MHA).
> MHA is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting research and
> understanding about Melungeons and other multi-racial groups in the United
> States. Dr. Kevin Jones, a biologist at the University of Virginia's
College
> at Wise, conducted the study.
>
> The presence of Turkish and northern Indian haplotypes within the
> mitochondrial DNA samples taken from modern-day Melungeons indicates that
> women of European/Asian origin were a part of the original mixture that
made
>
> up the Melungeon ancestry. Mitochondrial DNA comes from the female side of
> an individual's ancestry. Previous researchers had assumed that European
> males intermarried with Native Americans and African-Americans to produce
> the Melungeons. Although Native and African genes are definitely a part of
> the Melungeon genetic mix, women were among the overseas settlers who
> contributed to the Melungeon gene pool.
>
> Dr. N. Brent Kennedy speculated that the Melungeons were of Mediterranean
> and Middle Eastern ancestry and published his theories in a book entitled
> The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, published in 1994 by
> Mercer University Press.
>
> Dr. Jones, a native of London, England, studied at the University of
> Reading, and did post-doctoral research at Louisiana State University. He
is
> currently a professor of biology at UVA-Wise, teaching courses including
> cell biology and genetics. Dr. Jones undertook this DNA study in 2000 at
the
> suggestion of Dr. Kennedy, then vice-chancellor at the University of
> Virginia's College at Wise. Kennedy asked Jones to analyze DNA samples
taken
> from members of known Melungeon families. Such a study would utilize
> technology not available to earlier researchers.
>
> "Brent Kennedy... explained the controversy that surrounded the origins of
> the Melungeons [and] realized that I had the DNA expertise to look at
that,"
> Jones related in an interview with Wayne Winkler, president of the
Melungeon
> Heritage Association and author of an upcoming book about the Melungeons.
> "The subjects were largely chosen by Brent Kennedy on the basis of
pursuing
> as many of the known Melungeon lineages that existed in the area and
taking
> advantage of his genealogical expertise. People were then asked to donate
> samples to the study, and in the majority of cases they kindly did so."
> Single hairs were taken to study the mitochondrial DNA which traces the
> maternal lines of the subject. In other words, the samples represented
DNA,
> which could be traced to the subject's mother, grandmother,
> great-grandmother, and so on. "We also have a smaller number of samples
> which are cheek cells for looking at male inheritance," said Jones.
> "What we get from those is a DNA sequence which we can think of as being
> about an 600-long letter code, and we can take that string of 600 letters
> and compare those to what now is literally thousands of samples from
around
> the world. We're interested both in the number of different sequences that
> we get from the population and also how they appear to relate to other
> samples worldwide."
>
> About 100 hair samples were studied for mitochondrial, or maternal, DNA,
> and about 30 samples of cheek cells were taken to study the Y-chromosome,
or
> male, DNA. While more samples might have been taken, Jones said, "That's
the
> beauty of science: one can always subsequently refine and extend the
> analyses." The technology available to Jones allowed him to study only the
> mitochondrial DNA samples; the Y-chromosome samples were sent to
University
> College in London, England, for study. "The 'Y' is technically far harder
to
> do, and indeed, relies on expertise in some other labs in the world to do
> it, so we're partly dependent on their cooperation and collaboration."
> Such testing is not perfect, of course, and does not tell researchers
> everything about an individual's inheritance. For example, neither test
will
> give genetic information about a subject's paternal grandmother. However,
> the study was not particularly concerned with individual genealogies.
"We're
> looking for patterns that exist in the population as a whole," according
to
> Jones. "Now, obviously, each individual sample contributes to that, but I
> think that for an individual you can say relatively little. Looking at the
> patterns that occur throughout the population becomes important. And that
> means the number of samples that are looked at is also significant, and
> we've tried to do as many as is reasonably possible."
>
> Jones compared these samples to the thousands available through GenBank,
an
> international genetics database, published scientific literature and the
> Mitochondrial DNA Concordance, databases containing DNA sequence
> information. Looking at the maternal lines of the Melungeons who were
> tested, Jones found considerable variation in ethnicity among the samples.
> "It's comparatively straightforward to link particular sequences to
> particular ethnic groups and different Continental areas of the world," he
> noted, "and the majority of those Melungeon-derived sequences were
European
> in origin. Within those European samples, though, there is significant
> diversity, and some seem to reflect areas outside the traditional northern
> European sphere.
>
> "The ability to tie a sequence to a particular area is dependent upon the
> historical occurrence of any given haplotype somewhere, and the places
that
> are easy to track are where we've had populations existing for a long
time,
> and not being affected by a lot of different people coming in. So some,
> perhaps more isolated, areas of Europe are easier to track than more
> cosmopolitan [areas]."
>
> While the Melungeons are predominantly European in their genetic
> backgrounds, they are indeed tri-racial. "The appears to be a small
> percentage of both Native American and African-American sequences in
there,
> too," Jones stated, "although they are certainly both in the minority.
They'
> re both in there in about equal levels of representation as well."
> The long-held belief that the Melungeons originated in Portugal is neither
> borne out nor negated by Jones' research. "To date we've found no
sequences
> that can be definitively traced back to uniquely Portuguese sequences.
That
> doesn't mean that they don't exist. A large number of the European
sequences
> are now widely spread throughout Europe, and if one of those genetic
> sequences happened to come from Portugal we would not detect that. We
can't
> dismiss that theory at the moment, but we can't provide additional support
> for it."
>
> Jones finds a stronger possibility for a Turkish or Middle Eastern
ancestry
> for the Melungeons. "The relatively unusual European -type sequences seem
to
> reflect, perhaps, areas around northern India. It's very hard to say, back
> in time, what that would have been classified as, and I think one of the
> problems here is that we tend to think of 'Turkish' in terms of the
> dimensions of modern Turkey, not of the original scale of people of
Turkish
> origin who, in essence, were spread throughout the European world. Perhaps
> the best I can say is that some of those sequences are a little more
'exotic
> ' than Anglo-Irish sequences, and some of those could reflect, perhaps,
> populations that were associated with or moved through Turkey."
>
> The Portuguese and Spanish explorers and early American settlers may well
> be the key to discovering how these people wound up in America. The
> Portuguese, in particular, were involved in wide-ranging trade in the 15th
> and 16th centuries, and had many interests in places such as northern
India
> and the area occupied by present-day Turkey. Both Spain and Portugal had
> very cosmopolitan populations, with large numbers of people from many
parts
> of the world living within their borders. And Dr. Kennedy and others have
> suggested the Spanish and Portuguese fort at Santa Elena (in present-day
> South Carolina), along with a series of frontier outposts, as a possible
> source for Melungeon ancestry.
>
> With regard to the male lineage's investigated, the Y chromosome data also
> suggests a multiracial origin, including Sub-Saharan African and European
> components. Of particular interest are Y haplotypes of established
Melungeon
> male lines that possibly reflect Mediterranean and/or Near Eastern
> populations. This finding indicates that the overseas ancestors of the
> Melungeons may have come to these shores as part of a male-female family
> unit, or formed such family units shortly after arrival. Such family units
> came to America as part of a Spanish/Portuguese colony at Santa Elena in
> present-day South Carolina.
>
> Theories about when people with this genetic background first came to
> America are speculative at this point. "Dr. Jones' work has answered many
> questions," said Wayne Winkler, president of MHA, "but those answers have
> raised many more questions. These questions will keep historians busy for
> some time to come, and we may never have definite answers. The Melungeons
> may remain one of the mysteries of history."
>

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