The Melungeons were "a people who almost certainly intermarried with Powhatans, Pamunkeys, Creeks, Catawbas, Yuchis, and Cherokees" states, Dr. N. Brent Kennedy.

If you have been researching your family in the Cumberland Plateau of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee during the early migration years, you may be able to find them through a connection to this group of people who are only now being researched with unbiased eyes --the Melungeons.

Described as as being "dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people with very distinctive physiological characteristics, called ethnic markers. These ethnic markers seem to be passed on through the lines of some Melungeon descendants. The ethnic markers are a bump on the back of the head of some descendants, that is located at mid-line, just above the juncture with the neck. It is about the size and shape of half a golf ball or smaller. If you cannot find the bump, check to see if you, like some descendants, have a ridge, located at the base of the head where it joins the neck. This ridge is an enlargement of the base of the skull. To find the ridge, place your finger at the base of your neck where it joins your shoulders, and on the center line of your spine. Run your fingers straight up your neck toward your head. If you have a ridge, it will stop your fingers from going on up and across your head.

Chickasaw Fry Bread

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup warm milk

Stir first three ingredigents then stir in the beaten egg. Add milk to make the dough soft. Roll it out on floured bread board, knead lightly. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into strips 2 X 3 inches and slit the center. Drop into hot cooking oil and brown on both sides. Serve hot.

Creek Fry Bread

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

The Seven Clans

• Bird Clan - Their color is Purple, and their wood is Maple
• Blue Clan -Their color is Blue and their wood is Ash
• Deer Clan - Their color is Brown and their wood is Oak
• Paint Clan - Their color is White, and their wood is Locust
• Twister Clan - Their color is Yellow and their wood is Beech
• Wild Potato Clan - Their color is Green and their wood is Birch
• Wolf Clan - Their color is Red and their wood is Hickory

The Cherokee clans were based on a matrilineal system traced through the mother's ancestral line.

• Bird Clan, they were messengers and also very skilled in using blowguns for bird hunting. Eagle feathers were presented by them to other members of the tribe because they were only ones able to collect them. They were the keepers of the birds.

The Native American Nations, Tribes, and Bands located in North America are generally described by their regional locations. Information for all North American Native American Indians and their regional locations are as follows:

Northeast
Abenaki, Algonkin, Beothuk, Delaware, Erie, Fox, Huron, Illinois, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Mahican, Mascouten, Massachuset, Mattabesic, Menominee, Metoac, Miami, Micmac, Mohegan, Montagnais, Narragansett, Nauset, Neutrals, Niantic, Nipissing, Nipmuc, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Pennacook, Pequot, Pocumtuck, Potawatomi, Sauk, Shawnee, Susquehannock, Tionontati, Wampanoag, Wappinger, Wenro, Winnebago.

Southeast
Acolapissa, Asis, Alibamu, Apalachee, Atakapa, Bayougoula, Biloxi, Calusa, Catawba, Chakchiuma, Cherokee, Chesapeake Algonquin, Chickasaw, Chitamacha, Choctaw, Coushatta, Creek, Cusabo, Gaucata, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, Jeags, Karankawa, Lumbee, Miccosukee, Mobile, Napochi, Nappissa, Natchez, Ofo, Powhatan, Quapaw, Seminole, Southeastern Siouan, Tekesta, Tidewater Algonquin, Timucua, Tunica, Tuscarora, Yamasee, Yuchi.

The paths of Africans and American Indian tribes have crossed from the 1600’s to the 1800’s in varying degrees ranging from simple cohabitation to the forming of individual tribes. African and Native American interaction began even before Europeans brought African slaves to the Americas. Free Africans reached the shores of the American continent as traders and settlers long before Europeans arrived. In 1975, 2 Negroid skeletons were found in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One wore a pre-Columbian Indian wrist band. They were found in layers dated to about A.D. 1250. In 1974, Polish craniologists revealed that no fewer than 13.5% of the skeletons from the pre-Columbian Olmec cemetery of Tlatilco were Negroid.1 Later, when African slaves were brought to the Americas, they mixed with indigenous peoples from North America to South America. In the early days of slavery, indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africans were enslaved together. Sometimes, African slaves escaped to Native American villages on various parts of the American continent.