Editing Melungeon (section)

==Origins of the Melungeon people==
===Claims and hypotheses===
According to the 1894 [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of Interior]] Report of Indians Taxed and not Taxed within the "Tennessee" report, "The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census numbered 146 (71 males and 75 females) and are distributed as follows: [[Hawkins County, Tennessee|Hawkins county]], 31; [[Monroe County, Tennessee|Monroe county]], 12; [[Polk County, Tennessee|Polk county]], 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93.  Quoting from the report:<blockquote>The Melungeans or Malungeans, in Hawkins county, claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their white blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).</blockquote>

Anthropologist E. Raymond Evans wrote in 1979 regarding Melungeons: "In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local Whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim. ..."<ref>Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' IV(1): 1–31.</ref>

[[Jack D. Forbes]] speculated that the Melungeons may have been [[Saponi]]/[[Powhatan]] descendants, although he acknowledges an account from circa 1890 described them as being "free colored" and mulatto people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forbes |first1=Jack D. |title=Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples |date=1993 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Champaign, IL |isbn=9780252051005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D17DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22A+great+many+declare%22+Forbes&pg=PT240}}</ref>

In 1999, historian C. S. Everett hypothesized that John Collins (recorded as a [[Saponi|Sapony]] Indian who was expelled from [[Orange County, Virginia]] about January 1743), might be the same man as the Melungeon ancestor John Collins, who was classified as a "mulatto" in 1755 North Carolina records.<ref>C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," ''Appalachian Journal'' (1999)</ref> However, Everett revised that theory after he discovered evidence that these were two different men named John Collins. Only descendants of the latter man, who was identified as mulatto in the 1755 record in North Carolina, have any proven connection to the Melungeon families of eastern Tennessee.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Church_Cotanch.htm | title= ''Free African Americans,'' ''op.cit.'', Church and Cotanch Families |publisher=Freeafricanamericans.com |access-date=August 21, 2013}}</ref>{{Promotional source|date=September 2023}}

===Myths===
Dispute regarding the origin of Melungeons families has led to a large number of ahistorical and dubious myths regarding their origins. Some myths involve physical characteristics and genetic diseases that are claimed to indicate Melungeon descent, such as [[shovel-shaped incisors]], an [[Occipital bun|Anatolian bump]], [[Familial Mediterranean fever]], [[polydactyly]], [[dark skin]] with [[Eye color|bright colored eyes]], and [[Zygomatic bone|high cheekbones]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Chresfield |first=Michell |title=Genetics, Health and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates, 1950–80 |date=2022 |work=The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health |pages=459–475 |editor-last=Halliwell |editor-first=Martin |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/edinburgh-companion-to-the-politics-of-american-health/genetics-health-and-the-making-of-americas-triracial-isolates-195080/3A703AC97FB8D189B8C66834166B392C |access-date=2024-08-14 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5098-0 |editor2-last=Jones |editor2-first=Sophie A.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Loller |first=Travis |title=DNA study pops myths of Appalachia's Melungeons |url=https://www.telegram.com/story/news/state/2012/05/25/dna-study-pops-myths-appalachia/49621497007/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Worcester Telegram & Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Schrift" />

Other myths claim that the Melungeons are descendants of lost [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] colonists, marooned [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] sailors,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-10 |title=The Origins of the Melungeons |url=https://lcgsco.org/the-origins-of-the-melungeons/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Larimer County Genealogical Society |language=en-US}}</ref> descendants of the [[ancient Israelites]] or [[Phoenicia]]ns,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melungeons in Virginia |url=http://www.virginiaplaces.org/population/melungeon.html#:~:text=It%20was%20proven%20by%20the,time%20of%20our%20revolutionary%20war, |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=www.virginiaplaces.org}}</ref> [[Romani people|Romani]] slaves, or [[Turkic peoples|Turkish]] settlers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sassounian |first=Harut |author-link=Harut Sassounian |date=2012-07-25 |title=Sassounian: DNA Study Busts Myth that One Million Appalachians Are of Turkish Descent |url=https://armenianweekly.com/2012/07/25/sassounian-dna-study-busts-myth-that-one-million-appalachians-are-of-turkish-descent/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Armenian Weekly |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Genetic testing===
From 2005 to 2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group online. They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population",<ref name="jogg">{{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Roberta A. |last2=Goins |first2=Jack H. |last3=Ferguson |first3=Penny |last4=Crain |first4=Janet Lewis |title=Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population |journal=Journal of Genetic Genealogy |date=Fall 2011 |volume=7 |issue=1 |url=https://jogg.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/71.006.pdf |access-date=3 July 2023 |ref=71.006}}</ref> which shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, with one person having a Native American paternal [[haplotype]].

Estes, Goins, Ferguson, and Crain wrote in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" that the Riddle family is the only Melungeon participant with historical records identifying them as having [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] origins, but their DNA is European. Among the participants, only the Sizemore family is documented as having Native American DNA.<ref name="jogg" /> "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white [[indentured servitude|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]]."<ref name="loller2">>{{cite news |title=DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons |url=https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/dna-study-seeks-origin-of-melungeons/1231925/ |access-date=30 August 2023 |work=[[Tampa Bay Times]] |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=May 25, 2012}}</ref>{{void|Fabrickator|comment|This was previously cited as published on 11 March 2021 in the "News Leader" under the title "A whole lot of people upset by this study: DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons" at https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/; same story was published in the Progress-Index at https://www.progress-index.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/.}}<ref name="jogg" />