What is Melungeon?

[suelevin1]

Have you recently learned that you have Melungeon in your background? Are you wondering what that means? Briefly, the Melungeon people are associated with the Cumberland Gap region of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. They are European, thought by some to be of Portuguese or Greek ancestry. We welcome your comments and questions- ask to learn more!

[suelevin1]

Angkor, your green dot in Tennessee is Melungeon. It shows up as European on the map- we only have a few shapes designated and Melungeon is a mixture of races including European.

Sue

[Rex]

I was curious about the Melungeon people and behold--- my DNA plotted exactly where all my maternal family had lived since the early 1800's. Polk County, Cherokee County and Monroe County Tennessee are very populated with my relatives. I learned that their Portuguese claims could predate Columbus. It seems Portugal sent a colony here that were shipwrecked off the coast of NC or Florida, unable to return mixed within the native peoples. Cherokee was the story throughout those living there, yet no family genealogy reflects tribe enrollments or ethnic claims...all checked "white" on census, tax, will records...DNA says I have a lot of Portuguese ...but I also have Native American ll with two checks ...this tells me my Cherokee is showing and must be from my maternal grandfather that was adopted from a Cherokee reservation in 1924. His line I have not been able to do genealogy Ironically , he never spoke of it and hated being identified as "adopted", yet holds the Cherokee DNA I have, while the Melungeon family group always spoke of the full blooded grandmother that I was never able to locate, and I have done this family lines research back to 1580 Europe.