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Actually I don't know which genetic lines the people of Appalachia may have in their ancestry but I am sure it is quite varied.
I came across this (Mulungeon) as a possibility many years ago because my mother's people came to America through N. Carolina and made their way north along the eastern seaboard to southwest Virginia (Lee County) and eventually settled in Adair County/Columbia Kentucky.
Although we are generally blonde and blue eyed (we do have some redheads as well) there are ancestors/relatives who are dark skinned, black haired and brown eyed and I originally thought there may be some truth to the family lore of Cherokee blood. To this day I definitely have no clue but due to research I suspect we are Northern European with English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Germanic etc.
My sister recently did dna testing and although it is entertaining, meh it doesn't matter to me.
Op, try not to obsess so much about it, perhaps consider a dna profile and clear the air for your own satisfaction.
ETA: LOL, Op hasn't been here since 2011...scratch that advice!
To be clear I referred to Mulungeon's specifically not Appalachia as a whole. Mulungeon's are genetically different than non-Mulugeons, though they do share quite a bit of the same European DNA.
I am not Mulungeon but I do likely descend from some fo the same mixed race that both many Mulungeons and Lumbees trace their ancestry to. One of my ancestors up one of these lines is a Busby (who might have interacted and trace to the same Virginia origins of said Mulungeons and Lumbee) and multiple direct male descended cousins come up West African in Y DNA. Many Ivey male descendants also match very closely (within the range of matching in 1600s or 1700s) with the same Y DNA line (Ivey being one of the Mulugneon famlies that were mixed race). One of the potential ancestors of my Busby line is a kid identified as a Thomas Busby Indian servant in the late 1600s in Virginia (meaning if that is indeed right then he was paternally African but might have intermixed with some Indian servants/slaves and either previous to this or later generations with Europeans).
I have disproven most of my alleged Native ancestral lines myself, though DNA shows my father and grandmother have small Native segments that trace quite far back.
Im digging for needles, trying to determine where the mongolian look comes from. I thought I read years ago about mongolian mixed people in Appalachia, but I can not find the information now. Geesssh, if 10% indian can make my grandmother look completely mongolian, than native american genes must be very strong! I think there are mountains in west virginia called the Mongolian mountains. I have no idea.
Someone in your past ancestry had striking genetic traits that were derived from or mimicked Asian traits, perhaps from a local Indian population. If you have 5% Indian ancestry, one of your parents would likely have a higher percentage...increasing as you go back through generations. In your case, you say that others in the community don't share the Asian resemblance so it must be a few generations back and probably a single individual. If the trait was common to the whole community it might be derived from genetic isolation several generations in the past.
The proverbial high cheek bones and people think “I look Asian,” not even mixed. This seems to be prevalent with White Americans. I work with a girl who claims people have asked her if “She was Asian.” She looks like an ordinary White woman. She is part Russian by the way. I wonder how many mono-racial [East] Asians are asked if they are European who have European eyes and low cheekbones? East Asian who have varied phenotypes across the region whose features are not just eyes and cheekbones.
The poor usage of words here as in “slanted eyes” and “Asian type eyes” are correctly called epicanthic eye folds not found in all Native Americans, nor cheekbones are found in all Natives. And “mimicked Asian traits” would be pseudo-featured. Populations don’t “mimic” phenotypes for biological or advantageous reasons. This can be found in the plant or animal kingdom or plastic surgery.
Didn't they bring Asians here as indentured servants back in the day? "Black" people weren't the only "slaves". Everything that's happening today in terms of immigration and different ethnic groups being in America...is the same stuff that was happening at America's founding. Nothing new under the sun.
Didn't they bring Asians here as indentured servants back in the day? "Black" people weren't the only "slaves". Everything that's happening today in terms of immigration and different ethnic groups being in America...is the same stuff that was happening at America's founding. Nothing new under the sun.
Chinese men in the mid 19th century came (mostly without wives) to the American pacific coast during the Gold Rush and also during the building of the railroad (transcontinental). In the Caribbean were Chinese servants. There are Jamaicans mixed with Chinese. During the American Reformation when former slaves were leaving plantations, Chinese men found jobs as laborers down in Mississippi for example where they interacted with Blacks still working on the plantations. You have a small margin Blacks in these areas that have Chinese ancestry and also paternal halpogroups to support this and also some East Asian admixutre (not related to Native American).
Recent DNA testing done by companies as 23andMe and even Ancestry don't support these wild claims of American Indian, Chinese, Indian (India) and Roma (Gypsy), or name and it claim ancestry that permeate descendants of European colonials.
White Americans had more interactions with Black slaves, Free Blacks, mulattoes and quadroons and *even* then, the DNA contribution is small it does not change the genetic landscape of White American Colonials.
There are no halpogroups or autosomal that support a wide interaction with other non-European groups.
The prejudice and racial discrimination promoted by [early] White Americans would support this.
On 23andMe, there were gaggles of people, "My eyes look Chinese" or "My cheekbones are from the Indians" who came back the 100% glorious European sea of blue who were still in denial claiming the test is wrong because they or their grandma "look" like Indian or Chinese people.
The landscape 400 year ago was much different than today.
Okay, so I am so annoyed everyday of my life, being asked what ethnicity I am (why i look the way that i do) and then having difficulty explaining it. First of all, i am from an appalachian region. Most people in appalachia are pale, green/blue eyed, normal irish/english or german looking ancestry. I am pale, green eyed, obviously white/scottish/german/whatever. HOWEVER, my grandmother looks mongolian, or hawaiian yet with higher cheekbones /more slanted eyes, or even maybe half korean. She is not asian in any way, we do not even have many asians in appalachia from what I have seen. My grandmother has 7 children, half of them look completely asian mixed (very slanted eyes), the other half look slavic....(like me)....half mongolian with very light eyes. I was so annoyed that I took a blood test which determined me to be 90% european, with a window of 5-10% indigneous tribe(native american). Obviously 5% is not alot, so why do i have asian/indian features...but white/green eyed? What could explain this very strong mongolian look that has persisted in such a low percentage of native american?
Chinese men in the mid 19th century came (mostly without wives) to the American pacific coast during the Gold Rush and also during the building of the railroad (transcontinental). In the Caribbean were Chinese servants. There are Jamaicans mixed with Chinese. During the American Reformation when former slaves were leaving plantations, Chinese men found jobs as laborers down in Mississippi for example where they interacted with Blacks still working on the plantations. You have a small margin Blacks in these areas that have Chinese ancestry and also paternal halpogroups to support this and also some East Asian admixutre (not related to Native American).
Recent DNA testing done by companies as 23andMe and even Ancestry don't support these wild claims of American Indian, Chinese, Indian (India) and Roma (Gypsy), or name and it claim ancestry that permeate descendants of European colonials.
White Americans had more interactions with Black slaves, Free Blacks, mulattoes and quadroons and *even* then, the DNA contribution is small it does not change the genetic landscape of White American Colonials.
There are no halpogroups or autosomal that support a wide interaction with other non-European groups.
The prejudice and racial discrimination promoted by [early] White Americans would support this.
On 23andMe, there were gaggles of people, "My eyes look Chinese" or "My cheekbones are from the Indians" who came back the 100% glorious European sea of blue who were still in denial claiming the test is wrong because they or their grandma "look" like Indian or Chinese people.
The landscape 400 year ago was much different than today.
In general I agree. Though I would add that DNA studies show that there are a portion of White/European Americans that do in fact have a small amount of SSA (Sub-Saharan African) and Native American ancestry. A bit more SSA than Native. This portion is not insignificant but as you say does not support the idea of "wider interaction."
Something like 5-10% of White Americans have some very distant SSA (150-200+ years) and a bit less have distant Native DNA (trending to be more concentrated more distantly 200+).
I have seen no DNA studies that narrow down any East Asian influences at any traceable levels, though of course I'm sure there are rare exceptions.
Most of this interaction happened in the colonial periods where racial slavery and most of the American racial divisions were still forming to be concrete. The evidence suggests this is where some tri-racial mixing happened early at small levels amongst European, African, and Native American servants/slaves. There are even some records of early White Colonists/US Citizens that fought against bans on interracial marriage. These were relatively small and in the more remote areas. Also some European and Native intermixing early on with European Indian traders and settlers who got permission to settle on Native lands and had children that intermixed etc, many stayed within the tribes, but some stayed associated with their "White" families and intermixed more "White" until they passed.
As those racial laws and divisions became more solidified things became more rare (and the DNA studies seem to show this) though mixed races groups did exist in more of the back country and remote regions where people had "less" of an issue (some of these key areas are the progenitor areas in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to both Mulengeons and Lumbees, as well as various other groups and descendants that might not even know).
So it does exist and there are plenty of White people that might not even know they have African or even Native American ancestry. Though it's rarely matches the story of the "grandmother" or "great gandmother", often dating 200+ years back and of course the percentages show most White Americans simply show no evidence of this (though again 5-10% isn't insignificant either).
I myself disproved various near ancestry Native ancestors (though I did find a Native first wife of a 2x great grandfather, so a great grandmother grew up with part Native siblings, which makes sense why some stories might of existed) but via DNA testing my father, mother, and maternal grandmother I've identified Native American/East Asian DNA in both my father and grandmother (both pretty distant, likely 200+ years ago) and found at least three sources of African DNA, again 200+ years. I've also found male descended White cousins of a shared ancestor who show up African Y DNA meaning an African Male ancestor (tracing to the 1600s or early 1700s in Virginia, NC, or SC, possibly to a tri-racial source via a colonial Indian servant, though source isn't fully known yet).
So people should take stories etc with a huge grain of salt and we shouldn't overplay things, there was indeed intermixing but it mostly happened early on and at relatively small levels.
In general I agree. Though I would add that DNA studies show that there are a portion of White/European Americans that do in fact have a small amount of SSA (Sub-Saharan African) and Native American ancestry. A bit more SSA than Native. This portion is not insignificant but as you say does not support the idea of "wider interaction."
Something like 5-10% of White Americans have some very distant SSA (150-200+ years) and a bit less have distant Native DNA (trending to be more concentrated more distantly 200+).
I have seen no DNA studies that narrow down any East Asian influences at any traceable levels, though of course I'm sure there are rare exceptions.
Most of this interaction happened in the colonial periods where racial slavery and most of the American racial divisions were still forming to be concrete. The evidence suggests this is where some tri-racial mixing happened early at small levels amongst European, African, and Native American servants/slaves. There are even some records of early White Colonists/US Citizens that fought against bans on interracial marriage. These were relatively small and in the more remote areas. Also some European and Native intermixing early on with European Indian traders and settlers who got permission to settle on Native lands and had children that intermixed etc, many stayed within the tribes, but some stayed associated with their "White" families and intermixed more "White" until they passed.
As those racial laws and divisions became more solidified things became more rare (and the DNA studies seem to show this) though mixed races groups did exist in more of the back country and remote regions where people had "less" of an issue (some of these key areas are the progenitor areas in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina to both Mulengeons and Lumbees, as well as various other groups and descendants that might not even know).
So it does exist and there are plenty of White people that might not even know they have African or even Native American ancestry. Though it's rarely matches the story of the "grandmother" or "great gandmother", often dating 200+ years back and of course the percentages show most White Americans simply show no evidence of this (though again 5-10% isn't insignificant either).
I myself disproved various near ancestry Native ancestors (though I did find a Native first wife of a 2x great grandfather, so a great grandmother grew up with part Native siblings, which makes sense why some stories might of existed) but via DNA testing my father, mother, and maternal grandmother I've identified Native American/East Asian DNA in both my father and grandmother (both pretty distant, likely 200+ years ago) and found at least three sources of African DNA, again 200+ years. I've also found male descended White cousins of a shared ancestor who show up African Y DNA meaning an African Male ancestor (tracing to the 1600s or early 1700s in Virginia, NC, or SC, possibly to a tri-racial source via a colonial Indian servant, though source isn't fully known yet).
So people should take stories etc with a huge grain of salt and we shouldn't overplay things, there was indeed intermixing but it mostly happened early on and at relatively small levels.
I just want to be clear that my last post wasn’t disbelief of “no” interactions. Certainly on a lesser scale in US North America there was to a degree. So I do believe there was interaction. The claims are disproportionate (as we agree) where a large proportion of colonial Whites claim Native American, African or other exotic ancestry are not supported by DNA, even to support this thread. If most of these claims were true, [colonial] North Americans would more closely resemble Latin Americans with more admixture in autosomal analysis and showing more halpogroup distribution in areas where these claims are most seen as well as did occur. For example the Southeastern US.
In the case for Latin American people are mixed to varying degrees that it is recycled in the gene pool “within” the population compared to the US where admixture happened on small levels and were eventually bred out because *most* colonials did not have “mixed” ancestry. Most people with mixed ancestry stayed with their “minority” groups and rarely reintroduce their genetic admixture to larger mono-groups. For example, you have people living on Indian reservations with more White/or other ancestry than common Whites folk found with Native American ancestry. More Mulattoes (and mixed black ancestry) stayed with the Black community than went into the White community. I’ve seen someone find 25% native American and have no idea where it came from. Not the norm for a White colonial White American. In the US, you have small pockets with DNA evidence whereas Latin American (incl. Caribbean), it is very wide the genetic inter-mixture with the dispersal of halpogroups.
Actually I don't know which genetic lines the people of Appalachia may have in their ancestry but I am sure it is quite varied.
Although it is varied, certain areas (the Cumberland Plateau) were - by and large - a couple groups that were cast out of the UK and perhaps Ireland (after having been pushed there from England/Scotland)......to first be hired by and labor for the Slave Owners in the South...and then ran fast up into the Mts once their indenture was paid off.
The book "Night comes to the Cumberlands" is a pre-PC look at the heritage by one of their own.....the book is about $2 on Amazon, but the text is free online.
"Parliament wanted
to get rid of these social outcasts...The inevitable result was a series of Parliamentary acts making
it possible to transport street orphans, debtors and criminals to the
New World, their transportation costs to be paid by the planters"
"It is apparent that such human refuse, dumped on a strange shore
in the keeping of a few hundred merciless planters, was incapable of
developing the kind of stable society under construction in the Puri-
tan North. Instead of the hymn-singing pilgrim to whom idleness
was the badge of shame, we must start with the cynical, the penni-
less, the resentful and the angry. Many of them died on the planta-
tions under the whips of taskmasters. Some ran away and became
pirates whose Jolly Rogers terrorized the oceans. A few, perhaps,
rose over the heads and shoulders of their suffering fellows to become
planters themselves. Others — and it is these with whom we are con-
cerned — ran away to the interior, to the rolling Piedmont, and
thence to the dark foothills on the fringes of the Blue Ridge. These
latter were joined by more who came when their bonds had expired.
And here we have the people — few in number, but steadily gaining
recruits, living under cliffs or in rude cabins — who were the first to
earn for themselves the title of "Southern mountaineers."
The book is quite clear...although obviously many others later went to the hills - the engineers, the coal bosses and anyone who could head down the rail lines (put in later).
Native Americans were their friends. As the book states, these people had much more in common with Native Americans than they did with most other Americans as both desired to live off the land and be left alone. The book describes no wars between these people and the natives, but rather sharing of some basic skill sets.
So some of that makes sense.
There was some close breeding up there in some hollows but this has been largely disproven as being present in modern times. At the same time, some appearances may have been related to disease (Pelegra) and many other conditions which large portions of the population may have had. But, again, it wouldn't seem most of these would be passed down...but rather may be something a person would see in pictures of their ancestors.
Best course of action is to get a couple different DNA tests and see where that leads. Sometimes a gene expresses after many generations. My mom is S. Italian but the Scandinavians rules parts of Italy long ago. My mom sitting next to her sisters looks like a freak...since she is the Nordic one and the others look total s. italian (olive skin, etc.).
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