For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned residents of the southeastern Appalachia region, once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.
Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking. The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.
And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn’t sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry.
A new horror film called Chernobyl Diaries opens this weekend. Produced and co-written by Paranormal Activity originator Oren Peli and directed by visual artist Bradley Parker (Let Me In), the movie is inspired by actual tours for visitors to Pripyat, the city evacuated during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Some think this exploitation of the tragedy is tasteless, whereas I think it’s just unnecessary when there so many Doc Options to consider instead.
There are a few documentaries about the disaster and its aftermath, including Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s great 1999 black and white feature, Pripyat, which looks at people who have stuck around the area, and Maryann DeLeo’s Oscar-winning 2003 short, Chernobyl Heart, which focuses on young adults who’d been irradiated as kids as well as children born after the incident to irradiated mothers. There’s also the 2008 Oscar nominee The Door, which is a drama but was filmed in Pripyat so has a semi-documentary quality to it.
