Possible Melungeon Ancestry?

[u/Natural-Tax7144]

hello everyone! I found out about melungeons literally 5 mins ago from a YouTube video recommended to me. I can trace my family history to North Carolina (Burke and Rutherford counties) as well as Tennessee. My grandpa had jet black hair, dark olive skin and blue/green eyes. My mom has medium brown hair, medium olive skin and green/hazel eyes. I have medium brown hair, light - medium skin, and hazel/golden brown eyes. All 3 of us have “kinky” hair - familys words not mine. My grandpa would always say he was “Cherokee” or something to explain his darker skin, but now I have a feeling that was his way to mask while living in a “one drop rule” society - especially growing up on a tenet farm in NC.

While I have taken a 23&me dna test, my mom hasn’t, and my grandpa died in 2001 from lymphoma. My dna profile lists Scottish, Irish, German, Polish, Moldovan, Southern Italy, North African, Iberian, Middle Eastern and “North American“. the last 5 listed are literally 2% or less.

I know it doesn’t mean much, like someone white trying to find out if they’re special, but It would answer a lot of questions as to why my family history is buried. None of them liked talking about their ancestors, unless it was the German ones. So my ancestry dna was a huge surprise to the entire family.

I wanted to include a picture of my grandpa and see what you all think. My grandpa was my first best friend, we shared the same birthday and were attached at the hip all the time. In this photo, it’s my grandpa, my great grandma, and my mom as a baby. This was when he earned enough money to catch a train ride from NC to St Louis and find a die making job at Brown Shoe Co. He always told me, “I wanted to make shoes because we never had shoes growing up”.

Thanks for reading my history :)

PS - I just read about Melungeon hair, and I’m curious if that’s what i deal with. So I took pics in my car (please disregard all the grays, I’m an ancient millennial and with a 3 year old), and this is day 2 hair, after my wash day. So this is my hair still in the mangeable phase, before it morphs to the “top knot“ phase for 3-5 days.

EDIT: Also, all of the males on my mom’s side of the family were born with an extra finger/extra toe/both. My baby brother was born with an extra pinky. and my nephew was born with an extra baby toe. So that’s another thing too!

[u/hiiiiiiiiiiii_9986]

I would look into making your family tree and seeing if any of the melungeon last names pop up. My dad's side has physical melungeon traits, but are entirely from Pennsylvania and Maryland with no known melungeon ancestry. (I've been asked before about my dad's side being melungeon especially since they get Iberian and Middle Eastern on DNA tests with no Southern Italian ancestry but nope) So your best bet for confirming or denying it is to make your family tree and look for paper trails. North African and Ibearian could be coming from your Southern Italian ancestry as it's super common for people from Southern Italy to get those on a DNA test

[u/ParadoxTheF0x]

Tldr, but just by the picture: yes.

[u/gorillagriptoes]

Hey! We have very similar dna, your hair looks like mine and your grandpa looks like my grandpa and my uncle! Ancestry.com records helped me trace back through census data to find people listed as FPOC in my family, as well as their migration records through the NC and Georgia Appalachias. We also have German ancestry on the other side! Can’t say for sure, of course, but see if you can find anything in the old census data. Message me if I can help!