"Melungeon" was an obscure racial Pejorative in the early 1800s. The earliest reliable evidence of anyone self-identifying as Melungeon comes in the 1960s. According to folklorist Saundra Ivey, the emergence of this new identity was spurred by the presentation of an outdoor drama about Melungeons.
The extent to which Melungeons constitute a specific Race or ethnicity is controversial, because members of this group are considered to be racially mixed rather than exhibiting characteristics which can be incontrovertibly classified as being of a single racial Phenotype.
Even the origin of the term "Melungeon" is highly controversial. Some argue that it originates from the Turkish "Meluncan" (deriving from the Arabic "melun jinn") which means "cursed soul" or "lost soul." Another theory is that it derives from the French "Mélangien," meaning a person produced by a mélange, or mixture. A third theory traces the word to "malungu," a Luso-African root from Angola meaning "shipmate." However, "melungeon" is also an archaic English word meaning scoundrel.
Researcher Brent Kennedy believes that Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Ava Gardner may have had Melungeon roots.
Potentially related populations include the:
Each of these groupings of mixed-race populations has a particular history and culture, but historical evidence shows relationships among some of them.
Local customs and beliefs in Southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee--the region in which the Melungeon term is most often applied--held that they were dark-skinned because they had American Indian ancestry, although African ancestry is the more plausible explanation for some.