After my article DNA Mormons? published in Sunstone, I was introduced to Marylee Mitcham thru Dan Wotherspoon. Marylee brought me back to the Melungeons, I had investigated several years earlier. She told me of recent updates in Melungeon studies. Researchers had expanded the definition of Melungeon to include tri-isolate groups in Northern Georgia. Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Upstate and Long Island New York. Now the possibility of our Melungeon-type ancestry seemed quite plausible.
I read up on the latest information and easily digested the new theories. After all, I had several years of getting comfortable with the idea of our ancestors as an European/Amerindian/African mix. We had ancestors who came to America in the 1600’s; so it was likely our DNA was a mixture of European, Amerindian and African. We were mystified about the additional Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian DNA.
Later Marylee called to tell me she had even more exciting news that my possible Melungeons were also Sephardic Jews. I had never heard of Sephardic Jews, and was only vaguely aware of the Spanish Inquisition. Dear Marylee persisted; so to placate her I conducted the “Uncle Carmi Test”.
Rhoda Benson daughter of Uncle Carmi Benson
