DNA Study Busts Myth that One Million Appalachians are of Turkish Descent

DNA Study

DNA Study Busts Myth that One Million Appalachians are of Turkish Descent

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

For decades, Turkish pseudo-historians and propagandists have made bizarre claims about Turks being the ancestors of various ethnic groups around the world, including Native Americans, African-Americans, and the strangest of all -- Melungeons -- a little-known group of dark-skinned residents of Appalachia.

To counter Armenian political activities in Washington, the Turkish government regularly reaches out to anyone who could be co-opted with all-expense paid trips, special gifts, and other financial inducements, including funding studies and conferences on the alleged Turkish origin of Melungeons. Even though these one million Appalachians do not carry much political clout in Congress, Ankara is interested in claiming them to be of Turkish descent, hoping to strengthen its political and economic clout in the United States.

The Turkish initiative faced one ‘minor’ problem: there was no evidence that Melungeons were descendants of Turks. This issue was easily resolved when the Turkish government provided a “research grant” to a Melungeon named N. Brent Kennedy. In April 1995, he flew to Istanbul and wrote a book alleging that hundreds of captured Ottoman sailors were dumped on the shores of North Carolina by Sir Francis Drake in the 16th century!

Kennedy compiled a long list of “amazing” similarities between Turks and Melungeons, such as eating beef and mashed potatoes, the habit of hugging each other, Appalachian quilts having Ottoman designs, Anatolian folk dancers performing square dance, and Turkish music sounding like bluegrass! He discovered that the Turkish word “neyaygara” sounds like Niagara, “dilhah yer” is pronounced Delaware, “tenasuh” means Tennessee, “kan tok” is Kentucky, and “allah bamya” is Alabama!

Kennedy further stated that Turkish scholars have “long believed that a connection existed between themselves and eastern seaboard American Indians, based on both physical appearance and shared words and customs.” He gathered these “important facts” from Turkish “historians” during his meetings at Marmara University in Istanbul. “Several hundred Ottoman sailors could exert a powerful genetic, cultural, and linguistic influence on the sixteenth-century Native American Tribes into which they married,” Kennedy confidently concluded.

Appalachians, however, were infuriated by the distortion of Melungeons’ ethnic origin and exploitation of their history. Historian and award-winning journalist Tim Hashaw of Houston, Texas, sent a letter asking me to “investigate the tawdry connection between the ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations) and the Melungeon Heritage Association.” Hashaw asserted that “Melungeons are an obscure tri-racial (white, black, and American Indian) community in Appalachia -- Virginia and Tennessee. We are not now, nor have we ever been, Turkish. Yet, Melungeons are being wrongly exploited by Turkish associations to deny the Armenian Genocide and to support questionable Turkish agendas in Washington DC.”
Cont. here:

http://jackgoins.blogspot.com/2015/09/dna-study.html


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There is No Unique Turkish DNA

There has been an effort to convince American Indians and Mixed Blood groups such as Melungeons that they descend from Turkish sailors stranded on the Eastern Coast of America.

A convoluted explanation of how the Turks got here does not bear close scrutiny. It has been widely published that Sir Francis Drake dropped off a large group of Turks on his return from the sacking of Cartagena. There is not a shred of proof that this happened. And the much ballyhooed "DNA Evidence" does not bear out either.

It is now quoted widely on the Internet that certain groups in the USA have Turkish DNA. The article below from PubMed does not bear out that possibility. The suggestion is disengeneous at best.

The most important sentence in the article below is this:*The major components (haplogroups E3b, G, J, I, L, N, K2, and R1; 94.1%) are shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations* and contrast with only a minor share of haplogroups related to Central Asian (C, Q and O; 3.4%), Indian (H, R2; 1.5%) and African (A, E3*, E3a; 1%) affinity.

In other words, 94.1% of the DNA found in 523 Turkish Y chromosome samples is shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations. ***So there is no special motif orTurkish DNA.*** And this finding is explained by the closing sentence; "the variety of Turkish haplotypes is witness to Turkey being both an important source and recipient of gene flow".

In other words, 94.1% of the DNA found in 523 Turkish Y chromosome samples is shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations. ***So there is no special motif orTurkish DNA.*** And this finding is explained by the closing sentence; "the variety of Turkish haplotypes is witness to Turkey being both an important source and recipient of gene flow".

Genes have flowed out and genes have flowed in for a very long time and cannot now be separated as belonging exclusively to one group or the other. So it is very deceptive to speak of "Turkish DNA" in the context of it being unique.

See Also:

http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148.pdf


Hum Genet. 2004 Jan;114(2):127-48. Epub 2003 Oct 29. Links

Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia.

Cinnioglu C, King R, Kivisild T, Kalfoglu E, Atasoy S, Cavalleri GL, Lillie AS, Roseman CC, Lin AA, Prince K, Oefner PJ, Shen P, Semino O, Cavalli-Sforza LL, Underhill

PA.Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Stanford, CA 94305-5120, USA

Analysis of 89 biallelic polymorphisms in 523 Turkish Y chromosomes revealed 52 distinct haplotypes with considerable haplogroup substructure, as exemplified by their respective levels of accumulated diversity at ten short tandem repeat (STR) loci. *The major components (haplogroups E3b, G, J, I, L, N, K2, and R1; 94.1%) are shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations* and contrast with only a minor share of haplogroups related to Central Asian (C, Q and O; 3.4%), Indian (H, R2; 1.5%) and African (A, E3*, E3a; 1%) affinity. The expansion times for 20 haplogroup assemblages was estimated from associated STR diversity. This comprehensive characterization of Y-chromosome heritage addresses many multifaceted aspects of Anatolian prehistory, including: (1) the most frequent haplogroup, J, splits into two sub-clades, one of which (J2) shows decreasing variances with increasing latitude, compatible with a northward expansion; (2) haplogroups G1 and L show affinitie s with south Caucasus populations in their geographic distribution as well as STR motifs; (3) frequency of haplogroup I, which originated in Europe, declines with increasing longitude, indicating gene flow arriving from Europe; (4) conversely, haplogroup G2 radiates towards Europe; (5) haplogroup E3b3 displays a latitudinal correlation with decreasing frequency northward; (6) haplogroup R1b3 emanates from Turkey towards Southeast Europe and Caucasia and; (7) high resolution SNP analysis provides evidence of a detectable yet weak signal (<9%) href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14586639">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14586639">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14586639

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_people

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Where did the Cherokee Get Their Turbans?

Proponents of a Turkish origin for Native American Indians have used the Cherokee turban as proof of contact and genetic contributions from Middle Easterners to the Cherokee and other tribes. Quite the contrary, the practice was introduced on their famous delegate trip to the Court of King George:

"Turbans were first introduced to the Cherokees by King George's
ministers, who deemed the appearance of Mankiller, Stalking Turkey,
Little Carpenter, and other chiefs who made the trip to England
much too severe to be looked upon by their King. The King's
ministers changed the Cherokee visitors into garments which had
been left behind by a delegation from India.

The Cherokee chiefs returned to the Cherokee Nation
with the garments, which included the turbans.
These turbans and jackets became highly-treasured
items, worn for special occasions.

At first, Cherokees made additional turbans from
expensive imported cloths, but with the introduction
of the spinning wheel by George Washington, the
Cherokees began making their own cloth, from which
the Cherokee men fashioned headwear styled like the
exotic (and by now deteriorating) turbans worn at Council
by the aged chiefs who had 'crossed the water.' "

http://www.cherokeeturbans.com/history.html

Scroll to the bottom of the page to view a video explaining this and an illustration of how to wear a turban.

Removing the Keystone of Turkish Theory

by Janet Crain

A persistant rumor has spread all over the Internet that Melungeons descend from the some 300 to 600 Turks and other nationalities said to have been left on Roanoke Island in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake. In truth, there is NO evidence there were any left, much less several hundred.

Drake was returning home from the sacking of Cartagena when he decided to visit Roanoke and dispose of some of the freed prisoners and Maroons he had acquired during his adventures. He was carrying a human cargo of several hundred. He is said by Ivor Noel Hume in "Virginia Adventures" to have highly inflated the numbers. This voyage is of great interest to Melungeon researchers because this voyage in 1586 is the basis of the Turkish connection first started by Brent Kennedy's book; Melungeons; an Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing. It is, in fact, the keystone of the Turkish Connection Theory. Remove it and the rest crumbles. That is what I propose to do.

It is known that many of the people never reached Roanoke. Many died of strange fevers in Florida. Apparently Drake intended to leave the rest of the freed Africans and South American Indians to furnish labor for the new Colony which he expected to have grown to some 600 English by then. In truth there were about 100 men, badly in need of food and suffering the ill effects of their bad treatment of the local Indians. Ralph Lane was in charge at Roanoke and he accepted Drake's offer of minimal food supplies (Drake had been out a long time and was running low himself) and a ship, the Francis, capable of navigation into the bay plus other pinnaces, etc. and armament. All the supplies were loaded onto the Francis along with Lane's best naval officers. Lane wanted to stay a few more weeks exploring the Chesapeake.

But the best laid plans of mice and men can be blown to pieces by a terrible storm such as the one that then struck. Many of Drake's ships which had been waiting "standing in the roadway" off the Outer Banks were blown out to sea by the massive "hurricano" and scurried back to England. The Francis was among them with the badly needed supplies and trained naval navigators. Ralph Lane then accepted Drake's offer to transport the first colonists back to England. Most of the small pinnaces carrying the extra passengers had been dashed to pieces on the shoals during the storms. The Turks, known to have been with Drake, were apparently better safeguarded. They were valuable as trade for English prisoners lanquishing in Ottoman prisons. Some 100 Turks were, in fact, ransomed to their homeland.

So, just who might have gone ashore before the storm hit? Many people have a hard time visualizing the scene at Roanoke. Roanoke is surrounded by very shallow waters, hence the name; Shallowbag Bay. The only way to get there was by laborious offloading of men and supplies to shore boats and threading through the one pass, Fernando Pass, and the treacherous shoals and currents made worse at times by Northwestern winds blowing directly into the Bay. The shore boats were large by our standards and equipped with a mast and sail. They require a skilled pilot and several strong sailors to row. People didn't just hop on one and go sight seeing. Only those with important business such as Sir Francis Drake and Ralph Lane who negotiated several times were transported back and forth. The rest of the fleet with the passengers onboard stood out in the Roadway, the navigable waters off the Outer Banks, which wrap around this area like protecting arms.

I am saying this to lay to rest the idea of a huge number of the passengers dis-embarquing and perhaps being caught off guard by the storms and staying behind. Hume and David Beers Quinn are the authorities on this period and both say there were no Turks left. Hume says no one else, Quinn, at most a very few. Left with no supplies on the Outer Banks what would they have found to eat? If the Indians had not killed them, they would have starved.

It should be noted that the Native Americans communicated by a"grapevine" so efficient that Indians in Canada knew of happenings in the Virginias. No mention of any dumped off passengers was ever made.

Additionally, there was plenty of room for these passengers to sail with Drake. Hundreds had died in the battles in Florida, from fevers, and in the hurricane. Drake was returning with more ships than he left with, having captured many. And they would have furnished badly needed labor to sail these ships back to England.

Add to this the extreme difficulty of unloading these passengers in addition to loading the Roanoke settlers, which the crew deeply resented for the delay and extra work and danger this imposed and it is highly unlikely Drake would have taken such actions.

Ivor Noel Hume says:

Thus the hurricane of June 1586 may have ripped away the first page from the history of blacks in English America.

A cruel and terrible fate for these forgotten people that historians of the time did not consider important enough to even record their fate.

Present Day Map of the Area:


View Larger Map

Native Americans Targeted for Turkish Alliance

The Armenian Reporter March 15, 2008

Turks are saying they were the first Americans

Real Native Americans say they speak with forked tongue

by Anoush Ter Taulian

''Last month, I reported about a January 26 panel discussion on
Turkic and Native American connections, held at the Turkish Center in
New York (see the story in the Community section of the Feb. 9
Reporter) in which the Turks presented their theory that their
ancestors crossed the Bering Strait into the Americas and thus are
the ancestors of some of the present day Native Americans. Since
then, I've been asking Native Americans and what they think of this
theory and I've found they do not welcome these Turkish
claims...............................

............However, the presenters also put forward a claim of
Turkish-Native American relatedness from a much more recent time. It
involves a group of Turks who claim to be related to
the "Melungeons": a population of mixed Indian, white, and black
ancestry, whose members say they are the descendants of the 200
Moors, West Africans, Portuguese soldiers, South American Indians,
and Ottoman Turkish galley slaves that Sir Francis Drake brought to
Roanoke Island, Virginia, in 1586.* There is no record of the number
and origin of the rescued prisoners who made up the diverse
ancestors of today's Melungeons (the group designated "Ottoman
slaves" could have included Bulgarians, Circassians, Abkhazians,
Arabs, Berbers, Greeks – evenArmenians). Nevertheless, there are now
Melungeon societies in the Appalachians; and the town of Wise,
Virginia, and Cesme in Turkey have become "sister cities" and plan to
engage in economic trade – all on the basis of this claim of a
Turkish-Melungeon connection. But according to Anton Edwards, a mixed
Native and African American, "The claims of these Turks are
preposterous." Edwards familiarized himself with some of the
materials used by the Turkish-Melungeon advocates, but came away
unconvinced..........

Continued here
http://www.reporter.am/pdfs/A0315.pdf

* This assertion has no basis in fact. It has not been proven that Sir Francis Drake left any people in North America or if he did, that any survived. And the leap to identifying them as ancestors of the Melungeons is a very long leap, indeed. Additionally, it is a matter of historical record that Drake returned the Turks to their homeland. See David Beers Quinn.

Janet Crain

Who Were the Turks of Sumpter County?

by Pony Hill
4/28/2005

First off let me say this, I have no doubt that prior to the Civil War that the community of mixed-blood persons residing in Sumter County were probably referred to as "Turks". That this label was meant to define a Turkish origin for the group, I do not believe. In other areas at the same time, people of the same mixed-blood were called "Portugeuse" and "Moors" yet their ancestors are not from Portugal or the coast of Africa. 'Turk' was used the same way 'Melungeon' was used in Tennessee...not to explain the origin of a people, just to give a label to a mixed-blood community in order to differentiate it from the whites and blacks around them.

That your ancestor referred to himself as a "Turk" when he lived away from Sumter as a way of explaining his dark skin, is no surprise. In his mind, i suppose, it was a way to explain his racial origin, "I'm not full-blooded Indian, I'm not part Black, I'm a Turk from Sumter County" The fact that he applied for Indian land (it was not freely offered, an individual had to apply) but was turned down because he was a 'Turk' (which at the time was known to the Indian Office as mixed-blood persons of Indian descent but of unknown tribal origin-see below-) should be evident that he at least believed he had some Indian blood. However, at the time, persons called 'Turk' in Sumter were very offended by that label. When a class action suit was filed to allow 'Turk' children into white schools it was very clear that "you do not call them Turk to their face", and it was also noted by historians and ethnologists in the 1930's and 1940's that these people would get fighting mad if you called them Turk. I also have no doubt that there are probably people who now proudly claim to be 'Turk', there are people now who proudly claim to be 'Melungeon', but this is now a more racially tolerant South....prior to World War 2, a sure way to get a black eye was to go to Sumter and call someone a 'Turk' or go to Tennessee and call someone a 'Melungeon'.

Before his death in the early 1800's, Joe Benenhaley was the subject of a court case in Sumter where citizens were objecting to his right to vote. Dr. Brewton Berry made note of this incident in his 1940's book "Almost White". Berry notes that Benenhaley was called to testfiy as to his racial origin. (an important note here is that Berry recounts the testimony as that Benenahley was a 'mestizo' but no mention of 'Turk'.. Tom Sumter, the General's grandson, also called Benenhaley a "mestizo" in his history book but made no mention of Turkish origin) While Benenhaley was testifying, General Sumter stormed into the Courtroom, walked up to the witness stand and firmly shook Benenhaley's hand. (it was well known in the South at that time that no respectful Southern gentleman would shake a Negroes hand) This was all the judge needed to see, and the case was promptly dismissed.

In the 1930's, a court case was pressed to allow 'Turk' children to attend white schools. Reports from this case reveal that all the children subject to the proceedings (including Benehaley, Scott, Ellison, Tidwell, Deas families) were presently attending a special 'Indian School' and all the grandparents claimed to be "of Indian ancestry".

Here are a few historical references as to the racial origin of the 'Turks':

-"The Croatan Indians comprise a body of mixed-blood people residing chiefly in Robeson County, NC. A few of the same class of people reside in Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Scotland, and Hoke Counties, NC, and in Sumter, Marlboro, and Dillon Counties, SC. 1914 letter from special Indian agent O.M. McPherson to Commissioner of Indian Affairs

-"The Croatan tribe lives principally in Robeson County, NC, though there is quite a number of them settled in counties adjoining in North and South Carolina. In Sumter County, SC, there is a branch of the tribe, and also in east Tennessee. Those living in east Tennessee are called "Melungeans", a name also retained by them here, which is a corruption of "Melange", a name given them by early settlers (French), which means mixed." 1888 pamphlet published by Mr. Hamilton McMillan of Fayetteville, NC.

-"At one time the Croatans were known as "Redbones," and there is still a street in Fayetteville so called because some of them once lived on it. They are known by this name in Sumter County, SC, where they are a quiet and peaceable people, and have a church of their own. They are proud and high-spirited, and caste is very strong among them."1891 article of Dr. William T. Harris, Papers American Historical Association.

-It is well known that for the majority of the War, General Sumter camped on the Indian lands which were inhabited by the confederated Cheraw and Catawba tribe. Every able-bodied male Indian of that group was enlisted as scouts and warriors under various captains who served under Sumter's command. Sumter never approached the coast, and there are almost entire libraries of writings about Sumter's campaigns which were written by people who witnessed the battles. I'm sure that if Sumter had a Turkish guide during the War, someone would have noted it (why would Gen. Sumter, a man familiar with the area, retain a 'guide' from Turkey?). The only written record states that Sumter used Indian guides, scouts, spys, and warriors extensively.

Full Article Here:

http://www.sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/Indian.htm

There really is no 'Melungeon or Anatolian bump"

From Joanne Pezzullo's Research


There really is no 'Melungeon bump." The "anatolian bump" is actually a
PRONOUNCED EXTERNAL OCCIPITAL PROTUBERANCE or EOP and it does not mean you
"have ancestry from the Anatolian regions that are now Turkey" as has been
reported over the years. There is a higher incidence in that region but it
is found in Germans, Asians, and Africans. I know of no report that suggests
Melungeon descendants have a higher average of this Pronounced EOP than
compared to other groups. Actually it is reported;

"As this trait relates to activities and muscle development, physical labor
will affect EOP development. Increased physical activity (e.g., to plow
arable fields, to reap and carry crops) may explain some of the observed
differences.'' [See article below]


Nadir Gülekon,1 M.D., Ph.D. and H. Basri Turgut,1 Ph.D.

The External Occipital Protuberance: Can It Be Used as a Criterion in the
Determination of Sex?

JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES

''It is known that the EOP can show shape differences in various
populations. The incidence of a prominent EOP has been reported to be 10.9%
in Germans, 8.3% in Asians, 8.3% in Americans, 4.4% in Africans, 1.2% in
Egyptians, and 0.0% in Australians (1). The incidence of the EOP is found
higher in the Anatolian population (in general, 33.8% in the modern and
32.8% in the historic samples) compared with other populations. As this
trait relates to activities and muscle development, physical labor will
affect EOP development. Increased physical activity (e.g., to plow arable
fields, to reap and carry crops) may explain some of the observed
differences.''


http://books.google.com/books?id=EWc7d22_UMYC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=pronounc
ed+external+occipital+protuberance&source=web&ots=Pe5coLXOb8&sig=OyeeHk33lpc
kqWz3hueaGxWnkqY

The Truth Will Set You Free

by Khatchig Mouradian


In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Martin Luther King, JR.

If you want proof that telling what one is convinced is the truth can cost one his/her job in the US State Department, then a public reference to events that happened 91 years ago is as good as any. The latter, it appears, has sealed the fate of John Evans, the (soon-to-be former) U.S. ambassador to Armenia. A career diplomat, Evans had taken up that post, his first ambassadorial appointment, in August 2004. A few months later, during a tour which took him to some of the most vibrant Armenian-American communities throughout the United States, he uttered the following words at a public gathering hosted by the Armenian Studies Program at University of California, Berkeley: “I will today call it the Armenian genocide.” He was describing the deportation and mass annihilation of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. An estimated one million and a half Armenians fell victim to this state-sponsored decimation, which is now recognized as genocide by most Holocaust and genocide scholars,[1] many parliaments around the world, and even 39 of the 50 states in America.


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10422

The Melungeon People condemn the Armenian Genocide.