Who were the Melungeons? For more than 200 years, the mysterious Melungeon families of Appalachia were said to descend from Portuguese sailors, Turkish galley slaves, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Phoenicians, or even a lost tribe of Israel. Then scientists finally tested their DNA — and the Melungeon mystery was solved.

In this documentary, we uncover the true Melungeon ancestry revealed by the landmark Melungeon DNA study. Researchers analyzed Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA from descendants of the core Melungeon families of Newman's Ridge and Hancock County, Tennessee, and the results pointed somewhere the old legends never wanted to look: some of the earliest free families of color in colonial Virginia.

You'll discover why the father's line and the mother's line tell completely different stories, how a single 1662 Virginia law made these families free, how Melungeon surnames like Collins, Gibson, Goins, Mullins and Bunch were traced back through colonial records, and why the exotic "Portuguese" origin story may have been a survival strategy against racial laws — from the 1834 Tennessee constitution to Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act.

This is the real history of the Melungeons of Appalachia: DNA, genealogy, hidden ancestry, and one of the most fascinating origin mysteries in American history.

If you love DNA ancestry, genetic genealogy, Appalachian history and hidden American history, subscribe for more stories about the peoples, bloodlines and origins that science is finally rewriting.

Have Melungeon ancestry or one of these surnames in your family tree? Tell us in the comments.

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