Melungeon-L Archives

Archiver > Melungeon > 2002-06 > 1024761148


From: "Suze" <>
Subject: Re: [Melungeon] Melungeon DNA Study Results
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 10:52:28 -0500
References: <F191iyP6UR6g8STijsC0000635e@hotmail.com> <002201c217f6$f15ea2e0$799a6444@nv.cox.net>


Wow!
Suze
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Maggard" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 8:07 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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