For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were ...

Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking. The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence ...

Oral tradition - and perhaps convenience - had the Melungeons believing they were of Portuguese descent, but a new study published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy points to African ancestry.

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 ...

And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn't sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry. "There were a whole lot of people upset by this ...

However, a 2011 DNA study published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy pegs many self-identified Melungeons as the offspring of people from sub-Saharan Africa and Northern or Central Europe.

"In Tennessee, they are a people of more or less unknown origin. We assume there is some African ancestry, so the Melungeons largely kept to themselves," said Wayne Winkler, a professor at East ...

That report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn’t sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry. “There were a whole lot of people upset by this ...

And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn't sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry. "There were a whole lot of people upset by this ...

And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn’t sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry. “There were a whole lot of people upset by ...