There are also physical characteristics of Melungeons. One has to do with teeth. I forget what it's called. While I don't buy a lot of what has been written about the Melungeons, they come from the area where I research my own genealogy and they're fascinating people. They tend to get darker in the sun than their neighbors and they often have oral traditions in their family of being Black Dutch or Black Irish, which can mean anything. In many cases, it's just an explanation for being a lot darker than your fair neighbors.
Yes! The TV special discussed that. They were called shovel teeth or scoop teeth or something like that. I was berating my cat for some misdeed at the time and wasn't paying attention.
The documentary (I believe it was from the National Geographic Channel) mentioned that Melungeon descendants often have shovel teeth.
"There are also physical characteristics of Melungeons. One has to do with teeth. I forget what it's called."
"Shovel teeth," because of the shape, concave on the back. Certain native American tribes have the same trait.
My grandmother's people were Black Dutch, which probably had as much to do with having a lot of Native American blood as anything else. However, they were also mixed with French Huguenots (Maupin) who were driven out of France, settled temporarily in Holland, then went on to England, then to America from there to start an early Huguenot settlement in Virginia. The Dutch reference may have come from the stopover in Holland, but there wasn't any real reason for the Black Dutch or Black Irish reference except to explain dark Indian features which were looked down on back then.
Shovel teeth. The upper front four and the lower front four teeth are not flat, but are hollowed out with a ridge just above the gum line. Also, the ridge theme also applies to the back of the skull where it meets the neck. There is a ridge there which is so pronounced that it stops the fingers from being able to trace up the back of the head. This is the way my teeth and head are, but my characteristics come from Native American heritage from both sides of my family mixed with European. Before I read about this, I used to wonder why my teeth felt like that when I ran my tongue over them, but now I know more about my ancestors and understand. I don't know about Melungeons, mine were Black Dutch. Everyone is a melange, I guess, and fascinating.