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Gene surfing is a process in population expansion whereby certain variations become prominent and dominant in a short time, appearing to skip the slow, steady, uniform accumulation of variegation and diversification. According to a study of the population structure and genealogies of Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec, this type of drastic change accompanied the immigrant wave front that spread over the area in the 17th century. "Deep Human Genealogies Reveal a Selective Advantage to Be on an Expanding Wave Front" in Science magazine describes the resulting demographics.

Abstract
Since their origin, human populations have colonized the whole planet, but the demographic processes governing range expansions are mostly unknown. We analyzed the genealogy of more than one million individuals resulting from a range expansion in Quebec between 1686 and 1960 and reconstructed the spatial dynamics of the expansion. We find that a majority of the present Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean population can be traced back to ancestors having lived directly on or close to the wave front. Ancestors located on the front contributed significantly more to the current gene pool than those from the range core, likely due to a 20% larger effective fertility of women on the wave front. This fitness component is heritable on the wave front and not in the core, implying that this life-history trait evolves during range expansions.

So gene surfing in an expanding colonization phase can produce a genetic revolution whose effects will be felt for hundreds or thousands of years downstream in history.

We wonder if the same wave front demographics might explain some of the following population phenomena:

• Large scale triumph of Norman male lineages following the conquest of England in 1066.
• Selective expansion of Middle Eastern genes in Tennessee (including Cherokee families, Jewish male and female lines and Melungeons)
• Relatedness among Jews and "Jewish diseases"
• Diversity-within-uniformity of Polynesians
• Population replacement of Old European (U, N) by Middle Eastern genes (T, J)  in Europe as a result of the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution

Many students of history are puzzled why old populations have the allele frequencies and heterozygosity clines they have. Genetic drift is only part of the answer. Gene surfing and selection in deep history are the rest of it.

A mental foramen is a small hole in the mandible whose purpose is to allow passage of nerves and vessels to the brain and probably also to relieve tension during chewing and gnawing. It has been identified as a sign of archaic humans, including Neanderthals. Do you have one?

I asked my dentist to look at my X rays on file and he confirmed I have a mental foramen. He has often told me I have "powerful" jaws. It is unclear whether there are normally two of them and what their typical positions are.

In a previous blog post, "Neanderthals in America," we discussed mental foramina (the plural of foramen), occipital bulges or bumps and other archaic skeletal traits. Melungeons seem to have many of these ancestral marks.

Do you? You might want to check with your dentist.

Studies show that Europeans have, on average, between 1 and 4 percent Neanderthal genes from an early out-of-Africa interbreeding period in the Middle East. Science has not decided to consider Neanderthals a separate species or sub-species in relation to H. sapiens sapiens (humans).

DNA Consultants offers an estimate of Neanderthal ancestry based on matches with other archaic humans called Neanderthal Index.

Line drawing of Neanderthal male ©DNA Consultants.

San Diego State University professor D. Emily Hicks has traced some common ancestry with President Barack Obama. According to the professor of Chicana/o Studies, she and the President share Melungeon roots. Obama is a descendant of Mary Collins of Orange County, Virginia as well as of Nathaniel Bunch of Louisa County and John Bunch of New Kent--well known "feeder" counties for what became the Melungeon settlement described in Brent Kennedy's book, The Melungeons, The Resurrection of a Proud People.

Obama's Bunch line was found to carry E1b1a haplogroup, a sub-Saharan African male lineage. He is also supposed to have Cherokee ancestry in his mother's colonial genealogies.

Read the whole story at PRLOG.

For Bobbi Bacha of Blue Moon Investigations it was the chance of a lifetime. Attending a celebrity auction more than a decade ago, she put in the winning bid for some blood and semen stained sheets. Nearly 20 years old, but carefully preserved, they were reputed to come from the hotel room where Elvis Presley stayed on his Farewell Tour in 1977. She won't tell us how much she paid but says, "I could have bought a comfortable medium-sized home."

Bacha is no stranger to high-profile mysteries, crimes and misdemeanors. Part Cherokee, she is also of verifiable Melungeon descent. "As you know," she told us from her swanky glass headquarters building in Houston, "Nevil Wayland is my grandfather, and it was he who first coined the term Melungeon." We didn't know, but we soon got an earful. "We believe his wife was the daughter of Chief Red Bird as his son was the Scribe to Chief Red Bird.  Nevil built the first church in Arkansas after the family told of a great war against the Indians and he took them to Arkansas and built Stoney Creek Church. That's the name of it."

Bacha has also been in the movies, or at least her character has. The plucky Texas private eye is played by actress Sela Ward in “Suburban Madness.” This film is based on the real-life story of Clara Harris, convicted February 2003 of killing her cheating orthodontist husband by repeatedly running him over with the family Mercedes. Bacha was an eyewitness.

So what of Bacha's expensive sheet set? She tried for years to extract DNA, to no avail. The discipline had some growing up to do. Finally, she contacted DNA Consultants. Through the efforts of laboratory director Lars Mouritsen in Salt Lake City, we were able to succeed where others had failed. We obtained the first DNA profile, Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA results for what everyone believed was a thirty-year-old sample of the King.

The alleged Elvis sample turned out to have a Cherokee-specific form of mitochondrial haplogroup B on the mother's side and a Scottish Y chromosome on the father's. The autosomal profile confirmed these results with high matches for American Indian populations, Scotland and Spain.

There was not a high match for Melungeon, however, or Jewish . . . but wait! You'll have to read the whole story in Donald Yates' new book, where it is included in the DNA chapter, along with the results of our Cherokee DNA Studies.

The title of the book is The Cherokee Anomaly:  How DNA, Ancient Alphabets and Religion Explain America's Largest Indian Nation. It will be published by McFarland & Co. next year, with an introductory note by Cyclone Covey, foreword by Richard Mack Bettis, maps, figures and illustrations covering the entire history of the Cherokee from the third century BCE to the nineteenth century.

Phyllis Starnes drew many threads of Melungeon research together when she delivered her presentation on autosomal DNA validation studies at the Fifteenth Melungeon Union, held atWarren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC July 15-16, 2011. Sponsored by the Melungeon Heritage Association of Kingsport, Tenn., the conference was appropriately titled, "Carolina Connections: Roots and Branches of Mixed Ancestry."

Starnes, who is administrator of DNA Consultants' Melungeon DNA Studies as well as an assistant investigator responsible for authoring reports, began her presentation by telling her own story. In 2002, she read an article about the occurrence of Familial Mediterranean Fever in Appalachia, where she grew up. "This article was the catalyst for me to address my own health and ancestry," she told participants.

She had met N. Brent Kennedy, author of the touchstone book The Melungeons:  The Resurrection of a Proud People, and soon became acquainted with both Elizabeth Hirschman (Melungeons:  The Last Lost Tribe in America) and Donald Panther-Yates, both speakers at Melungeon Fourth Union in Kingsport. The resources she needed for understanding her peculiar heritage were coming together.

Starnes summarized the Hirschman-Yates study of Melungeon DNA results published last December in Appalachian Journal and went on to reveal the results of a validation study of the Melungeon data in which the DNA profiles of the 40 participants were fed back into the database atDNA, expanded to reflect the world's only autosomal DNA Melungeon sample.

Astoundingly, many Melungeon DNA project participants had Melungeon as their No. 1 match, including Starnes.

In 1990, physical anthropologist and chemist James Guthrie analyzed blood sampled from 177 Southern Appalachian people identifying as Melungeon tested by Pollitzer and Brown in 1969. Guthrie's analysis was consistent to a remarkable degree with the Hirschman-Yates study.

All studies to date have verified and confirmed repeatedly that Melungeon descendants carry an unusual mix of Jewish, Mediterranean, Turkish, Iberian, Native American and African DNA. They also inherit genetic predispositions toward developing Familial Mediterranean Fever and other disorders.

This overarching thesis explaining what makes Melungeons different was advanced over twenty years ago by Brent Kennedy. It has now been re-examined, probed, tested and validated by unimpeachable followup studies, but little has turned up to change Kennedy's original thinking. It would be wrong to say that Melungeon origins today are controversial or mysterious. There is much we do not know about them, but their genetic and medical profiles are clear.

Starnes is enrolling people in Phase II of the Melungeon DNA Study. She has also inaugurated a password-secured blog where participants can freely share their experiences.

This posting will review some of the material we have previously made available about the science behind our three Jewish markers in the autosomal 18 Marker Ethnic Panel. First, it may be worthwhile to recount the chronology of our testing innovations in this area.

2006 - DNA Consultants introduces the DNA Fingerprint Test, one of the first simple autosomal ancestry tests based on population databases

2009 -Donald N. Yates, Ph.D., principal investigator, makes the discoveries in July that lay the foundation for the DNA Fingerprint Plus, rolled out in early September. The enhanced product includes simple autosomal markers for Native American, European, Jewish, Asian and African ancestry, based upon their frequencies of occurrence in these ethnicities.

2010 - Several important studies on Jewish genetics appear; DNA Consultants introduces Jewish DNA Test

2011 - DNA Consultants releases version 2.0 of its autosomal population database atDNA, marking the addition of the population Melungeon (n=40).

One of the first of the Jewish markers to be blogged about was Jewish II, characteristic of Ashkenazi Jews. Theodor Herzl, the nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian Zionist thinker-organizer who helped inspire the founding of the State of Israel, is an example of a famous Ashkenazi Jew. There was another post titled Jewish Marker II Statistical Notes.

A post on Jewish I soon followed, together with a discussion about its European connections. There has been an ongoing discussion on the Jewish Forum on DNA Communities.

Jewish III has been the slowest to emerge. Its Middle Eastern nature has been explored and expanded upon in several threads on DNA Communities.

In the Fall of 2010, our project administrator tabulated results for more than 450 people who had ordered a Jewish Ancestry Test through our partner Jewish Voice. It was found that 99.97% showed at least one Jewish marker, that is, had some Jewish ancestry.  Some had all three markers while others had a combination of the three in some way.  The informal study indicated 74% of Jewish Ancestry Test takers had Jewish I, 30% had Jewish II and 82% Jewish III.

Our New Computer Program Validates Melungeon Sample and Conclusions

Early experiments with our new Melungeon Match product show that members of the original research study score extremely high for a match to the population Melungeon (n=40) recently added to the database atDNA (Beta Version).

A sample of forty self-identifying Melungeons was assembled for a study by Donald N. Yates and Elizabeth C. Hirschman that should appear in the fall issue of Appalachian Journal. Their autosomal profiles formed the first population to be added to our new computer program atDNA, which contains the database used for the DNA Fingerprint Test. 

As an example, one of the participants, with known Melungeon ancestry including Ramey descent through her father, elicited the following top five matches in the new database, with Melungeon as her No. 3 match:

Polish - Podlasie  (n = 842)	6.19E+14
Slovenian (n = 193)	8.92E+14
Melungeon (n = 40)	9.9E+14
Egyptian Copts - Adaima (n = 100)	1.05E+15
Polish - (n = 412)	1.07E+15

In the participant's father's results (Floyd Milton Grimwood, deceased), Melungeon was higher, occupying the No. 1 spot:

Melungeon (n = 40)	1.63E+13
Slovenian (n = 193)	1.75E+14
Polish - Podlasie  (n = 842)	2.39E+14
Belarusian - Northeastern Poland (n = 212)	2.42E+14
Polish (n = 870)	2.52E+14

Such results tend to confirm the representativeness of the original sample, which contained closely and distantly related people of declared Melungeon ancestry, and validate its conclusions.

Melungeon DNA Project Administrator, Phyllis Starnes, who is also a moderator for the Melungeon Forum on DNA Communities, is coordinating the check for Melungeon ranking for the 40 participants. She will have a summary statement ready soon.

Statistically, the results are nothing short of astounding. They show Melungeon autosomal DNA reflects a well-defined population isolate with multiple interrelatedness. Melungeon is a valid historical and scientific label, not an arbitrary or adventitious designation or construct.

Pictured above:  four generations of the Tennessee Melungeon Ramey family.

After many years in development, the results of a DNA ancestry project enrolling 40 Melungeons were published and made public, marking the end of an attempt to solve the mystery of a Southern U.S. ethnic group with autosomal DNA.

Seeming to lay to rest an old controversy in American history about Melungeons, the scientific data supporting a genetic mixture of white, American Indian and Sub-Saharan African were placed online today by the organizers of DNA Consultants' Melungeon DNA Project.

The data report a sample of 40 Melungeons' DNA fingerprints. Population analysis of the participants' DNA fingerprints was used in an article for Appalachian Journal. Titled "Toward a Genetic Profile of Melungeons in Eastern Tennessee," the study was co-authored by Donald N. Yates, principal investigator of DNA Consultants, and Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, a professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

"This is a giant stride forward in understanding the mixed ancestry of Melungeons," said Donald Yates, co-author. "Never before has autosomal DNA been used in attacking the problem."

The 40 participants' names were:

Anonymous, Mabel Bentley, Judy Douglas Bloom, Leah Laura Bulgariev, John (Dick) Caldwell, John R. Caldwell, Sr. (deceased), Virginia Caldwell, William Collins, Mary Goodman, Floyd Milton Grimwood (deceased), Ann Reagan Haines, Linda Barnett Hall, Nancy E. Hammes, Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, Pat Goin Jones, Brenda LaForce, Everett LaForce, Jessica Kiely Law, Bonnie J. Lyda, N. Brent Kennedy, Richard Kennedy, Margaret E. Kross, MeriDee Orvis Mahan, Karen Mattern, Sebenia Ann Milbacher, Nicolas J. Millington, Holli Starnes Molnar, Nancy Sparks Morrison, Teresa Panther-Yates, Billy Starnes, Julia Starnes, Keely Starnes, Phyllis Starnes, Richard Stewart, Doretha J. Thornton, Kaye M. Viars, Celia Wyckoff, Wayne Winkler, Betty Yates Adams, Donald N. Yates.

Participants were qualified by their genealogies and included many names familiar to those who follow Melungeon genealogy discussion groups on the Internet, including Brent Kennedy, author of the book 1996 book that started the Melungeon Movement, his brother Richard Kennedy; Elizabeth Hirschman, a native of Kingsport, Tenn., along with several members of her family; Wayne Winkler of the Melungeon Heritage Association and author of Walking Toward the Sunset; and Nancy Morrison, creator of the online Melungeon Health referral service.

More information on DNA Consultants' Melungeon DNA Studies page.

 

Melungeon family in Tennessee about 1900.

 

Older version and abstract of "Toward a Genetic Profile of Melungeons"

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is interested in their namesake's Jewish ancestry. Do a Google Search and you'll get numerous hits under "Abraham Lincoln Jewish Ancestry." They can all be traced back to the work of Rutgers University professor Elizabeth C. Hirschman, who published her findings in The Melungeons:  The Last Lost Tribe in America in 2005 (Mercer University Press). Melungeons.com immediately reported the news in an article on Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, in March 2005.

Actually, the revelation goes back to Abraham Lincoln's own lifetime. In 1909 a book was written by Isaac Markens titled Abraham Lincoln and the Jews. In it is the germ of the controversy. Rabbi Isaac Wise of Cincinnati wrote in 1865, "Abraham Lincoln believed himself to be bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He supposed himself to be of Hebrew parentage, he said so in my presence, and indeed he possessed the common features of the Hebrew race both in countenance and features."

 

Sketch of young Lincoln shows typical Sephardic Jewish looks:  dark features, bony skull, lanky build, big nose, craggy brow.

Lincoln's son Robert later denied the admission of Hebrew ancestry. He told Markens that he had "never before heard that his father supposed he had any Jewish ancestry." Markens dismissed the exchange between Lincoln and the rabbi as a "pleasantry."

Pleasantry or not, the rumor seems to reflect historical truth. "The Lincoln material in my book traces his family's arrival from England into the New Hingham Colony in Massachusetts and their migration down to the Appalachian area," Elizabeth Hirschman told the curator of the Lincoln Collection, James M. Cornelius, who contacted her in September. "I use genealogies, marriage practices, wills and cemetery inscriptions to build the case for his Jewish--and likely Sephardic--ancestry."

Now that Lincoln is beginning to be seen as having Jewish ancestry, what about his status as a Melungeon? That has now slipped into jeopardy, it seems. Jewish and Melungeon ancestry go hand in glove, except in the eyes of those who don't believe Melungeons are a distinct ethnic group at all. They are opposed to finding any unwanted ethnicity in people claiming to be Melungeon. We predict Lincoln's Jewishness will rapidly be disposed of by these devotees of the received standard version of American history.

Customs and Beliefs of the Roma and Sinti

Some of our customers have been surprised to get Gypsy/Romani population matches in their results for the DNA Fingerprint Test. Typically, these are combined with Middle Eastern and Indian matches due to the Gypsies' historical migrations. Other customers were not surprised at all and called to tell us about the fortuneteller great-grandmother or mysterious ancestor who traveled with the circus. Gypsy heritage is not unheard of among Melungeons. So for those who think they may have Roma/Sinti or Romechal (the term used in the British Isles), we have compiled the following list of customs and beliefs taken from an excellent authority.

Strict monotheism similar to Jews

Keeping the seventh day holy

Lighting candles on the evening of Parashat (Friday)

Blasphemy a sin, as is cursing an elder

Beng (Satan) the enemy of God and of the Roma people

The Evil One called bivuzhó (impure) and bilashó

 

Code of Law

No social classes, only a division into Roma and Gadje (non-Roma)

A court of justice called Kris (Judiciary Council), composed of clan representatives as judges

Both men and women serving on Kris

Issues between Roma to be judged only by the Kris, not by Gadje

All Roma equal before the eyes of the Kris

Belief in blood revenge and compensatory payment for clan of victim

Banishment from territory of victim’s clan for wrong doing

Forfeiture of protection if banished offender reenters

Roma not even to acknowledge or greet one who is banished

Accursed or banished called mahrimé (impure)

Roma not to ask interest for loans to other Roma, only from Gadje

 

Sexuality, Marriage and Childbirth

Nudity is taboo, allowed only with a husband and wife

Showing naked legs before an elder disrespectful

Homosexuality an abomination

Not allowed to wear clothes of the opposite sex, even as a joke or disguise

Virginity before marriage essential

Tokens of virginity shown to the assembly after wedding

Prostitution strongly condemned

Incest taboo, defined in the same way as Mosaic law (including step-siblings and in-laws)

Permissible to marry your cousin

Members of the Kris must be married

Lack of a spouse makes a man or woman incomplete

Groom’s family pays dowry to the bride’s family

Dowry for a widow amounts to half that for a virgin

A man dishonoring a woman should pay the dowry to her family anyway

Runaway couples considered legitimately married

Marriage endogamic, even within the same clan

Clan recognized by a common ancestor within a few generations

Divorce admitted:  husband sends wife out or she leaves

Remarriage expected after divorce

Levirate law practiced (Deut. 25:5-6)

Childbirth impure, must take place outside the home

Mother giving birth isolated with baby for seven days strictly, followed by 33 days of less strict isolation (cf. Lev. 12:2, 4-5)

New mother cannot show herself in public or attend religious services

Both sexes marrying very young (child marriage)

 

Funeral and Mourning Rituals

Dead to be buried intact (autopsy or cremation sacrilegious)

Close relatives of the dead impure for seven days

Not to touch a dead body

Family and relatives of deceased forbidden to bathe, comb their hair, cut their nails for three days

On third day after a death, relative must wash thoroughly, and then not again until seventh day

All food in house where a person died is thrown away as defiled

On third day after a death, the house is purified (“the ashes of the burning of the sin”) and a virgin sprinkles running water

The same ceremony repeated on the seventh day after a death, with food brought to the mourners from another dwelling place

Mourners stay at home

Sitting on low stools

Covering mirrors

Not using oils or perfumes or cosmetics

Not wearing new clothes

Not listening to loud music

Not taking photographs or watching television

Not painting, cooking, and cannot greet people

Day mourning extended after seventh day remembrance ceremony until thirtieth day

Another remembrance ceremony on thirtieth day, closing the strict mourning period

 

Beliefs in Afterlife

Death is final, no reincarnation or return

Soul goes to Paradise or Hell

 

Purity and Impurity

Concept of marimé (similar to kashrut)

Lower body and things associated with it impure

Sleeping regarded as an impure state

Not to greet anyone upon waking until washed

Disrespectful to greet anyone in an impure state

Dogs and cats impure

Horses, donkeys or riding animal impure

Carnivorous animals impure

Avoidance of horseflesh

Shoes, pants, hose, skirts, trousers, etc. impure

The camp pure

Restrooms built outside the home

Clothes for the lower body and menstruating women washed separately

Dishes washed in a different place from clothes

 

Other Practices

Custom of mangel, asking for favors from Gadje

Painting doorposts of dwelling with animal blood to protect against angel of death

Invoking the Prophet Elijah, particularly when seeing lightening or hearing thunder

Firstborn son considered a special blessing to the family

Wearing of whiskers

Left hand related to the public domain (Gadje), impure

Separate dishes and cups for Gadje

Only eating ritually slaughtered animals

Slander considered very a very serious offense, worth taking to Kris

Lack of belief in divination (contrary to general view of Gypsies)

Practice of Tarot cards and crystal balls for Gadje only

Having a Gypsy name besides a civil name

Names that are Hebrew, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Persian, never Indian or Hindu

Beef a favorite food

Interest in bullfighting

Middle Eastern music and dance with zithers, etc. (Flamenco in Spain)

Fingernails and toenails filed with an emery board, not a clipper

Going to a church called Filadelfia (Brotherhood)

Claiming to be Egyptian in origin

Making pilgrimages to the burial places of your ancestors

 

Source:  Abraham Sándor, “Comparison of Romany Law with Israelite Law and Indo-Aryan Traditions”