RESOURCES
IMPORTANT: We are in urgent need of funding to keep this project alive and ensure its future. If you’re enjoying the site, please consider contributing to our pre-launch campaign today. It is only with your help that I can continue this work. MORE INFO / DONATE
Thanks so much for your support! – Jes
Welcome to the resources page for Melungeon Roots. Here you’ll find all sorts of research materials to get you started or to help you on your journey. Use the filters to find exactly what you need. Resources are added and updated daily. Happy researching!
NOTE: I’ve only entered a VERY small percentage of the data that will eventually be available for filtering. Lots more to come!
- WARNING:
Some resources were included because of their historical significance, but they contain racist language, harmful stereotypes, and/or mature topics. I’m working to get warnings added to these items for anyone who would like to be able to filter those out, including auto-filter for Junior Researchers. You can help me speed up that process by submitting any warning information you feel should be added through our Connect form. I appreciate your help!
share:
1860 U.S. Census – Panther Creek, Hancock County, Tennessee
How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia
History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia
1840 U.S. Census – Morgan County, Kentucky
Toward a Genetic Profile of Melungeons in Southern Appalachia
First Families of Tennessee: A Register of Early Settlers and Their Present-Day Descendants
Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia
An Overview of the Phenomenon of Mixed Racial Isolates in the United States
Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree
1870 U.S. Census – District 11, Hancock County, Tennessee
Analysis of a Tri-Racial Isolate
Lee County, Virginia: History Revealed Through Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of Its Ancestors
Melungeon Voices S4 E3 – Joshua Outsey
Race, Roots, and Relations: Native and African Americans
The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to WhiteMelungeon Voices S4 E2 – Dr. Kathy Lyday
Hillbilly Women: Mountain Women Speak of Struggle and Joy in Southern Appalachia
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States
The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community
A Note on the MelungeonsMelungeon Voices S4 E1 – Kiran Singh Sirah
The Complexities of Native Identity in AmericaMelungeon Voices S4 E4 – Aaron Collins
Blurring the Lines of Race & Freedom: Mulattoes & Mixed Bloods in English Colonial America
Melungeons: Footprints From the Past
Melungeon Portraits: Lived Experience and Identity
Unravelling the Hidden Ancestry of American Admixed Populations
The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud PeopleMelungeon Voices S3 E1 – Ramona Moore Big Eagle
Melungeon Voices S3 Bonus – Live from the 2022 Author EventMelungeon Voices S5 E7 – Melungeon and Redbone Ancestral Connections
The Melungeons of Newman’s Ridge: A Portfolio of Portraits
The Buffalo Ridge Cherokee: A Remnant of a Great Nation Divided
Ancestors and Enemies: Essays on Melungeons
The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South 1521-1704
Daughter of the Legend
New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States
Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed AmericaMelungeon Voices S3 E4 – Ron Carson
The Melungeons: A Mixed-Blood Strain of the Southern Appalachians
Race Relations in Virginia and Miscegenation in the South 1776–1860
Our Mountain Heritage: Ancestors from Southwest Virginia (Including Edwards, Wright, Hay, Colley, Deel)
Strangers in Their Midst: The Free Black Population of Amherst County Virginia
Out of the Woods
“Mixed Blood” Indians: Racial Construction in the Early SouthMelungeon Voices S1 E1 – Frederick Murphy
Lest We Forget: The Melungeon Colony of Newman’s Ridge
1880 U.S. Census – District 91, Hancock County, Tennessee
Melungeon Portraits: Exploring Kinship and IdentityMelungeon Voices S3 E6 – Gabriel Greaves
From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish-American DialogueMelungeon Voices S1 E2 – Beverly Scarlett
Melungeon Ties
1830 U.S. Census – Hawkins County, TennesseeMelungeon Voices S4 E5 – Melinda Trueblood Stimpson
Researchers Tackle Mystery of the MelungeonsMelungeon Voices S4 E6 – Scott WithrowMelungeon Voices S5 E2 – “Generations: An Indigenous Exhibit”The Melungeons: Red, Black and White in the Old South
We’re Still Here: Contemporary Virginia Indians Tell Their Stories
Red, White & Black: The Peoples of Early North AmericaThe Many Faces of Melungeon Ancestry
Letter from Walter A. Plecker to Local Registrars, et al.
Demon Copperhead
Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America
My Melungeon Heritage: A Story of Life on Newman’s Ridge
Scots and Scotch Irish: Frontier Life in North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky
Almost White: A Study of Certain Racial Hybrids in the Eastern United StatesMelungeon Voices S5 E4 – Melungeon & Maroon Communities and the Underground Railroad
Ascribed Ethnicity and the Ethnic Display Event: The Melungeons of Hancock County, TennesseeMelungeon Voices S1 E6 – Sonja Griffin Evans
The Forgotten Portuguese: The Melungeons and Other Groups
Smoky Mountain Mysteries: Stories About Magnificent Mountains Unique People
A Wandering Tribe: Dispersal of the Catawba Nation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763Melungeon Voices S2 E3 – LaTonya BeattyMelungeon Voices S3 E3 – Katya FarisMelungeon Voices S5 E6 – At-Risk Populations of Appalachia & Southern U.S.Melungeon Voices S3 E2 – Mike Richards + Tim Webb
Catawba, Saponi, Melungeon
1619 – Twenty Africans: Their Story, and Discovery of Their Black, Red, & White DescendantsMelungeon Voices S3 E5 – Janeen StephensMelungeon Voices S5 E1 – Southern & Appalachian Folk Medicine
The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and IdentityMelungeon Voices S1 E4 – Paul JohnsonThe Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-Racial People in Lower East Tennessee
Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South
Melungeons: Examining an Appalachian LegendMelungeon Memories Project
Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples
Origin Traditions of American Racial Isolates: A Case of Something Borrowed
Black in Appalachia S1 E10 – Melungeons
Making Indians “White”: The Judicial Abolition of Native Slavery in Revolutionary Virginia and Its Racial Legacy
1850 U.S. Census – Subdivision 33, Hancock County, Tennessee
Beyond the Sunset: The Melungeon Outdoor Drama, 1969-1976
A Study of Tri-Racial Isolates in Eastern United StatesMelungeon Voices S5 E5 – Overcoming Generational Trauma and Melungeon Resilience
Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies
The Melungeons: An Annotated BibliographyMelungeon Voices S2 E1 – Kimberly KnightMelungeon Voices S2 E5 – Onur Kaya
Melungeon History and MythMelungeon Voices S1 E3 – Bill GipsonMelungeon Voices S4 E7 – Dr. Jose Pimienta-Bey
Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South
Adventures in the Gene Pool
A Question of Indian Identity in the Plecker Era: The Monacan Indian Nation in the Twentieth Century
Melungeons Yesterday and Today
1850 U.S. Census – Subdivision 32, Hancock County, Tennessee
Directory of Scots Banished to the American Plantations, 1650-1775
The Melungeon Identity Movement and the Construction of Appalachian Whiteness
Wise County Virginia
Erasure & Tuscarora Resilience in Colonial North Carolina
The Portuguese Making of America: Melungeons and Early Settlers of America
Black Indian Genealogy Research
1840 U.S. Census – Hawkins County, TennesseeMelungeon Voices S3 E7 – Dr. Melissa Carver
Windows on the Past: The Cultural Heritage of Vardy
Measurement of Race and Ethnicity Across the Decades: 1790–2020
A Geographic Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in Eastern United StatesMelungeon Voices S2 E7 – Dr. Arwin Smallwood
North from the Mountains: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, OhioMelungeon Voices S1 E7 – Wayne Winkler
A Church Book for Stony Creek Church
Survey of Demography, Anthropometry, and Genetics in the Melungeons of Tennessee: An Isolate of Hybrid Origin in Process of Dissolution
Melungeons and Other Mestee GroupsMelungeon Voices S5 E3 – Discovering Melungeon & Indigenous Ancestry
The Melungeons: The Pioneers of the Interior Southeastern United States 1526-1997
The Melungeons
The Mixed-Blood Racial Strain of Carmel, Ohio, and Magoffin County, KentuckyMelungeon Voices S2 E4 – William Isom IIMelungeon Voices S1 E5 – Robert Wells
On Family and Fences: Tracing Melungeon Roots in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and Tennessee
The Melungeons: Notes on the Origin of a Race
Melungeon VoicesMelungeon Voices S2 E2 – Jake Richards
Melungeons: The Vanishing Colony of Newman’s Ridge
Singing Down the Preacher
Our Side of the Mountain
Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population
The Melungeons of Newman’s Ridge: An Insider’s Perspective
The Physical Anthropology and Genetics of Marginal People of the Southeastern United States
Mixing in the Mountains
Carolina Genesis: Beyond the Color Line
An Introduction to the Guineas: West Virginia’s Melungeons“What Ain’t Called Melungeons is Called Hillbillies”: Southern Appalachia’s In-Between PeopleMelungeon Voices S2 E6 – Lauren Magnussen
The Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel About the Melungeon Shantyboat People
A Peculiar People: The Melungeons
Gibson Family Genealogy: A Melungeon Line