Is Elvis Presley really a Melungeon Turk ?

Question

Is Elvis Presley really a Melungeon Turk ?

Answer 1

Amateur genealogist and professional university administrator, N. Brent Kennedy, has theorized in "The Melungeans: The Resurrection of a Proud People" (1994)  that the Melungeans comprise a distinct ethnic group living primarily in the Upper American South  in part descended from Portuguese and Turkish adventurers.  

Previously, anthropologists had labeled Melungeons "Tri-racial isolates", meaning they were a mixture of three distinct racial groups: 1) Northern Europeans, usually of Scots-Irish, Scottish, English, or Welsh stock, 2) Sub-Saharan Africans, and 3) Native-Americans.  Contemporary, self-identified Melungeons find such a tag quite pejorative just as their ancestors found words like ""free persons of color" or "mulatto" equally offensive during all of the 19th- and much of the 20th-century.  

Some researchers still maintain that the group's origin stems from the intermarriage of freed slaves with European indentured servants to create an Atlantic Creole mix in the 17th and 18th centuries. Indeed, a limited DNA sampling of people who consider themselves Melungeons reveals that they are mostly of European ancestry but that they also possess small percentages of African American and Native American DNA.  However, other limited samplings of different self-identified Melungeons contain some Eurasian or Middle Eastern DNA.

Dr. Kennedy suggests that Elvis, Ava Gardner, and Abraham Lincoln all had Melungeon roots, but no definitive genetic proof exists to document the distinct separate identity  of "Melungeon Turks" one way or another.  Each individual family's ancestry must be determined on a case-by-case basis, not merely by focusing on surnames.  At any rate, Elvis had black hair (helped along by hair dye) and blue eyes.

P. S. Jan -- I  think the Melungeon descent was through Elvis' mother, Gladys Love Smith, not his dad. Does anyone have her genealogical tree?  If not, I've provided her Ancestry.com link:

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/pedigree.a...

Dr. Kennedy claims that Glady's descent from Morning Dove White, who may or may not have been a Cherokee, as well as the Tackett family shows Melungeon ancestry.  Jim Tackitt [a variation of Tackett] desputes this claim in his well-argued home.comcast.net link.

Answer 2

NO!! Don't know where that idea came from, but this site has his family tree---http://www.idreamof.com/famous/presley/t...

It goes back from Elvis Aron Presley (b. 1935, Tupelo, Miss.; d. 1977, Memphis, TN) 10 generations to a man named JOHANNES VALENTIN PRESSLER, b. 1669 in GERMANY. His grandson, ANDREW PRESLEY, JR. (changed the last name spelling as most immigrants did) was born 1732 in Maryland.

   His father was ANDREAS PRESSLER:

Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s

Name: Andreas Pressler

Year: 1710-1711  

Age: 9  

Estimated Birth Year: abt 1701  

Place: New York, New York  

Source Publication Code: 3620.1  

Primary Immigrant: Pressler, Andreas

Annotation: Date and port of arrival or date and place of mention in the New World. A few are date of intent to emigrate. Number on the Hunter Lists, birth dates, family relationships, and places of origin may also be provided. Exhaustive information on more than 500  

Source Bibliography: JONES, HENRY Z., JR. The Palatine Families of New York: A Study of the German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710, Volume I. Universal City, CA: Author, PO Box 8341, Universal City, CA, 1985. 624p.  

Page: 103  

www.rootsweb.com mentions 1 more generation--Johannes Pressler's father was Hans Christoph (o. Valentin) PRESSLER , b. 1641 in Germany.

The generations going forward are :

1. Hans Christoph (o. Valentin) PRESSLER , b. 1641 in Germany.

2. JOHANNES VALENTIN PRESSLER, b. 1669 in GERMANY

3.  Andreas David (Preslar) PRESSLER --b. 1701 in Germany; d. 1759, Anson County, NC

4. Andrew (Andreas) PRESLEY --b. 1732/1733 in Maryland ;

          d. about 1795

5. Andrew PRESLEY , Jr.--b. 1754 in VA ; d. 1855 in Hawkins Co., TN

6.  Dunnan PRESLEY --b. 1780 in Mississippi or. NC ; d. est. 1830/1850  in Mississippi

7. Dunnan PRESLEY , Jr.--b. 1827 in Mississippi ; d. 1900 in Barry, Mississippi

8. Rosie PRESLEY --b. 1862 in Mississippi ; d. about 1924

9. Jessie D. McLowell PRESLEY --b. 1896 in Mississippi ; d.

    1973 in Kentucky

10. Vernon PRESLEY--b. 1916 in Miss.; d. 1979, in Memphis, TN (buried at Graceland)

11.ELVIS ARON PRESLEY--b. 8 JAN 1935 in Miss.; d. 16 AUG 1977 in Memphis, TN. His daughter, LISA MARIE, is still living.

NOTES--Elvis' death, a subject of some controversy, has been officially attributed to heart failure, a likely result of Presley's chronic overuse of prescription barbiturates. Presley is buried at his mansion, Graceland, which continues to attract fans and is a major tourist site in Memphis.

   Elvis had a twin brother, Jessie Garon, who was stilborn, buried in Presley Cem. near Priceville, Miss.

(Doesn't sound like someone born in Turkey to me. Just a good old German-American country boy, to me. LOL)

Answer 3

These are interesting answers!  My ancestors settled in southwestern Virginia, southeastern Kentucky, and northeastern Tennessee before 1800, and there is a possibility that we have some Melungeon blood in my dad's lines somewhere.

There were Presley and Pressley families in this section of the south.  Which is no proof whatsoever that Presleys were Melungeons - just an observation that the surname was found in the areas where Melungeons lived.

I found a book a while back about an East Tennessee woman's search for her Melungeon ancestors.  The book is Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors by Lisa Alther.  I thought her family stories and her subsequent search were interesting, even if they didn't bring anything new to the Melungeon question.

Again, thanks all of you for some terrific information!

Answer 4

The answer is "nobody knows". Honestly, there isn't a defined Melungeon race. It could be Turkish, could be Portuguese, could be the lost colony of Roanoke intermarried with Native people. There isn't a single definition of what it means to be "Melungeon", so we can't say that someone is or isn't a member of that group unless they tell you that they are.

A very well-respected college administrator wrote a nice book about Melungeons a few years ago. You might find it interesting and helpful in understanding the complexities of identifying Melungeons. Here's an article that hits the high points: http://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues05/...