In other words, we are approximately 49 % northern European, with the other 51% consisting of a mix of south Asian, Turkish-Greek, Middle Eastern, and sub-Saharan African. A far cry from the 100% northern European argued for by this early critic (and a percentage that may be significantly lower than what might have been found in my late mother. In fact, as follow-up we are having both my and my father’s DNA analyzed as well to see if we can better establish the sources of our various heritages. I plan on releasing those results, as well).
To further appreciate my brother’s results, and for comparative purposes, DNAPrint Genomics (http://www.ancestrybydna.com) provides the following “average results” for northern Europeans:
And this is an average for modern Europeans: several centuries back one would expect the more “southerly” ethnic admixtures to be even less significant than they are today, with “northern European” genes having been even more dominant then. Too, many modern northern Europeans, including some examples at the above website, test out in the 90% to 95% Northern European range, with generally no south Asian. In fact, here are results of the same test provided to me in confidence from a Turkish friend (both parents from the Anatolian region) and a British friend (now living in the D.C. area):
The “average” northern European is: 82% Northern European; 05.5% Greek-Turkish (now termed; southeastern European); 01.5% South Asian (India-Pakistan); 11% Middle Eastern

Turkish Friend Northwestern Europe 21%; Turkish-Greek/southeastern European 35%; South Asian 32%
Middle Eastern 12%

British Friend Northwestern Europe 91%; Turkish-Greek/southeastern European 5%; South Asian 0%
Middle Eastern 4%

I also received the following results from an Appalachian cousin who had her father’s DNA analyzed, a gentleman who is related to my mother via a half dozen or more lines and also has no recent (i.e., post-1500s) Old World ancestors to “explain away” his results. This gentleman, now is his late eighties, showed the following: Native American/east Asian: 35%; Indo-European: 65%. His 65% Indo-European broke down as follows: Northern European 40%; Middle Eastern 0%; South Asian 5%;
Turkish-Greek/Southeastern European 55%.
In short, the genetic northern Europeanism of this gentleman constitutes less than one third of who he is. Whatever the case, my brother’s percentages, coupled with the variety of non-northern European mtDNA and Y sequences discovered in our family (ranging from Middle Eastern to Native American to central Asian to African), should convince even the most die-hard northern Euro-centric proponent that something else has been going on in the southern Appalachians, and likely along the eastern seaboard, for quite some time. I remain absolutely convinced that significant numbers of people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage came to this nation under the flags of northern and western European nations, intermarried not only with other, more “traditional” Europeans, but with Native and African Americans as well. They then carried their combined genes and cultures from coast to coast, most becoming lost to “history” as it would be written.
While the DNAPrint and the Euro-DNA are still being refined and will undoubtedly become even more accurate in the future, my brother’s results do not surprise me and, in fact, generally align with what I had expected based on real-life experience. However, had I “bought” into what I have been taught by outsiders all my life (i.e., that Turks and Greeks and Middle Easterners and south Asians were likely never on these shores, or at least hadn’t married into MY family), I probably would be questioning the accuracy of this test. But I stopped buying into it a long, long time ago and I do believe this analysis to be generally on target. Incidentally, to be sure of my conclusions, I asked Dr. Tony Frudakis of DNAPrint Genomics to review my data and general conclusions before posting this article. While I take full responsibility for the article, he did have this to say: "I found that Mr. Kennedy responsibly and soundly interpreted the significance and bearing of his autosomal admixture results, and he demonstrated a solid understanding on what autosomal tests can and cannot do and how they should and should not be interpreted."
Of course, from a “records” standpoint we cannot prove with absolute certainty how these ancestors arrived. For example, does our south Asian come from the Asian Indian wives of Portuguese settlers, or seventeenth century Tidewater Virginia servants with English surnames, or Romany Gypsies, or the self-proclaimed “Portuguese-Indian” ancestors in my family (Reeves, Roberson, Mullins, etc.)? Can this finally explain the eccentric, long standing south Asian names we have in our family (such as “Canara,” the original name for the Indian region known today as Karnataka?). Does our Greek-Turkish/southeastern European/Middle Eastern come from converted Ottomans sent as Spanish and Portuguese settlers, or Jamestown’s textile workers, or Sir Francis Drake’s abandoned Turkish and Greek sailors? The answer to all of the above questions is, I don’t know, and I may never know. But not knowing how they arrived is not proof that they didn’t arrive. They DID come: my brother and I, and undoubtedly others, are living testimony to this fact.
Finally, and importantly, it’s critical to remember that DNA testing can only confirm what you have inherited – it cannot discount or disprove any heritage. For example, with an acceptable level of confidence, I know via privately obtained DNA sequencing that I have Native American ancestry through three of my four grandparents (Native American mtDNA haplotypes). The family oral traditions through these three grandparents, unproved through the official written records, turn out via DNA analysis to have a probable basis in fact. Yet, the Native American DNA found via DNAPrints in my older relatives is absent in my brother and me. Why? Because the percentage of any heritage is cut in half with each succeeding generation. Unlike the analysis of mtDNA or Y-chromosomes (which maintain their basic integrity/haplotype generation after generation), a DNAPrint, or a Euro-DNA Print, cannot always pick up those ancestries, particularly after a certain number of generations have passed. Typically six or seven generations will erase their presence in these tests. My great aunts show their Native American heritage via mtDNA sequences, and also in the DNAPrint in percentages ranging from 2% to 23%. But three generations later and that heritage is no longer traceable in Richard or me. But this does not mean we aren’t descended from Native Americans – we are. Again, we can validate what we have via these tests, but not finding a particular heritage does not necessarily invalidate its existence, and this is important to remember. What is also important for us, that is, my family in particular, is that our combined south Asian, Middle Eastern and Greek-Turkish ancestors apparently outnumbered the Native Americans and Africans, and at least matched the northern Europeans in our specific ancestral lines. So much so that in 2005 their combined genes still comprise a bit more than half of what we are. In essence, my brother and I are more than 50% non-northern European, and just as closely linked genetically to the people of the Aegean, Anatolia, the Middle East, and India and Pakistan as we are to Ireland and England. And our Mother and her family were likely even more closely linked. Yet, throughout our lives we have been taught – rigidly taught – that in spite of what our eyes could see, this was not true. In the heart of Appalachia, in front of the very noses of academia, an incredible story has been waiting, indeed begging, to be told, but those who could have helped in the telling were either unable, or unwilling, to do so. Who we were and who we are even today – our basic human identity - had already been assigned to us by the outside world, the winners, in effect, engaged in the traditional writing of “history.”
For more than a century the Melungeons (and other mixed race peoples) have been told that their traditions and their beliefs have little or no merit. History books long ago dismissed and excluded any significant Portuguese, East Indian/south Asian, Ottoman Turkish, Greek, or general Mediterranean genes from their ancestral pools. In clinging to Portuguese or other non-northern European Old World origins, according to this stance, Melungeons were simply harboring a deep-seated psychological need for an “exotic ancestry,” clinging to “myth” in order to make themselves feel special. But the truth is, in my opinion, that the Melungeons were doing nothing more than expressing the basic human need – and right - to preserve and to celebrate one’s full ancestry. Just as the northern European side of me is permitted, even encouraged, to celebrate its heritage (which I gleefully do on each and every Saint Patrick’s Day), so should the south Asian and the Turkish or Middle Eastern or African sides of me be permitted to do likewise. There is no such thing as an “exotic” ancestry and I find it offensive to have that term thrown out again and again in the manner that it has been. In India and Pakistan and Turkey, “English” could be considered “exotic.” This terminology, and the argument it supposedly supports, has grown wearisome, offensive and, as growing DNA and archival evidence increasingly demonstrates, erroneous.
The bottom line remains as it did in my original “Ties That Bind” presentation: We are all human beings, comprised and composed of all those who came before us, creations of God, Children of Abraham. Nothing more, nothing less. Not exotic, not mundane. Simply people wanting to know more about those that came before them, so that they might teach those that come after them. My brother’s and my search for origins is confirming for us who we are, but it should not be viewed as a shortcut to the solution of the mystery of the Melungeons: it is not. A great deal more archival research and further refinements/advancements in DNA sleuthing lie ahead before that day arrives, if it ever does. But, perhaps a little selfishly, I do take joy in the fact that I at least know a bit more about my family’s specific ancestry and the cultural and genetic forces that shaped them, and ultimately me.
In closing, the photographs included in this article may better illustrate why I might have questioned my family being so adamantly labeled by a modern researcher as exclusively northern European.
With appreciation for all those engaged in family research, Melungeon or otherwise.

Brent Kennedy
Below are some of members of Brent's Family:  

Richard Kennedy and family, 2004	Nancy Kennedy, 1970	Richard Kennedy, 1973

Nancy Kennedy and son Brent, 1950	Canara Nash, Brent Kennedy's great-great uncle and son of Louisa Hall Nash	Louisa Hall Nash, Brent Kennedy's great-great grandmother