MELUNGEONS

DEFINITION

The ancestry and identity of Melungeons are highly controversial subjects. There is wide disagreement among secondary sources as to their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and geographic origins and identity. Whether Melungeons constitute a specific race or ethnicity at all is debatable. They might more accurately be described as a loose collection of families of diverse origins who migrated and intermarried with one another. Melungeon is not a separate category on the U.S. census, but is tabulated under "SOME OTHER RACE 600-999". In the 2000 Census, Melungeon was ethnic category 662, but the number varies from census to census.

Melungeons are defined as having racially mixed ancestry, thus do not exhibit characteristics which can be classified incontrovertibly as being of a single racial phenotype. Most modern-day descendants of Appalachian families traditionally regarded as Melungeon are generally Caucasian in appearance, often, though not always, with dark hair and eyes, and a swarthy or olive complexion. Descriptions of Melungeons vary widely from observer to observer, from "Middle Eastern" to "Native American" to "light-skinned African American."

A major factor in the wide variation in descriptions is the lack of a clear consensus on exactly who should be included under the term Melungeon. Almost every author on this subject gives a slightly different list of Melungeon-associated surnames, but the British surnames Collins and Gibson appear most frequently (genealogist Pat Elder calls them "core" surnames). Many researchers also include Bowling, Bunch, Goins, Goodman, Minor, Mise, Mullins, Wise, and several others (although not all families with these surnames are Melungeon). Not all of these families were necessarily of the same racial background, and each line must be examined individually. Ultimately, the answer to the question "Who or what are Melungeons?" depends largely on which families are included under that designation.

The original meaning of the word "Melungeon" is obscure. From about the mid-19th to the late 20th centuries, it referred exclusively to one tri-racial isolate group, the descendants of the multiracial Collins, Gibson, and a few other related families of Newman's Ridge, Vardy Valley and other settlements in and around Hancock County, Tennessee. Some researchers limited application of the term further to the descendants of two early 19th century settlers of that area, Vardy Collins and his brother-in-law Shepherd Gibson. Recently, however, some researchers have begun to use Melungeon to mean almost all traditionally recognized tri-racial isolate groups of the Eastern United States.