alfieb's 23andMe Results

[alfieb]

I got a message on 23andMe from another Sicilian H2a2a from a few towns over from where my grandmother was born. He says that his town used to be a Norman castle, and wondered if my family was from the same area.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one.

These small towns are in the centre of Sicily and all have populations of only a few thousand, and that is probably why the haplogroups are virtually unheard of on DNA sites. All the big cities in Sicily are near the shore.

[imglink]http://i56.tinypic.com/2pycfq1.png[/imglink]

The left blob is the small town his family is from, and the larger right blob is the town my family is from. The larger image is not Sicily, but rather the Province of Palermo.

[Pinkpanda93]

I got a message on 23andMe from another Sicilian H2a2a from a few towns over from where my grandmother was born. He says that his town used to be a Norman castle, and wondered if my family was from the same area.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one.

These small towns are in the centre of Sicily and all have populations of only a few thousand, and that is probably why the haplogroups are virtually unheard of on DNA sites. All the big cities in Sicily are near the shore.

[imglink]http://i56.tinypic.com/2pycfq1.png[/imglink]

The left blob is the small town his family is from, and the larger right blob is the town my family is from. The larger image is not Sicily, but rather the Province of Palermo.

So what you're saying is, these small villages are genetically isolated from the dominant gene pool of the island?

Oh by the way did you ever end up submitting your file to Dienekes and if so did you hear back?

[alfieb]

So what you're saying is, these small villages are genetically isolated from the dominant gene pool of the island?

It appears so. These villages are separated by one village in between them.

From a more recent message he sent me, he claims that his hometown used to be called "Castello Normanno" and like myself, he hasn't met any other H2a2a's who were even Southern European, let alone Sicilian.

They both have apx. 4,000 residents, are a half-mile up on a mountain, and are over an hour's car length from any cities... imagine how long it would've taken in Medieval times.

I can't imagine the Normans brought a lot of females with them from France, either. Some took their wives, obviously, but not daughters or any of that.

Scandinavian Y-DNA HG's only make up a small percentage of Sicilians, but mtDNA? I presume it's only fractions of a percent.

[Pinkpanda93]

It appears so. These villages are separated by one village in between them.

From a more recent message he sent me, he claims that his hometown used to be called "Castello Normanno" and like myself, he hasn't met any other H2a2a's who were even Southern European, let alone Sicilian.

They both have apx. 4,000 residents, are a half-mile up on a mountain, and are over an hour's car length from any cities... imagine how long it would've taken in Medieval times.

I can't imagine the Normans brought a lot of females with them from France, either. Some took their wives, obviously, but not daughters or any of that.

Scandinavian Y-DNA HG's only make up a small percentage of Sicilians, but mtDNA? I presume it's only fractions of a percent.

So Norman ancestry appears to not be spread evenly throughout the population. Because in all honesty the average Sicilian I see online and in person doesn't look Scandinavian. But what mtdna's are frequent in Sicily?

And I don't know if you saw my question but did you ever end up submitting files to Dienekes?

[alfieb]

Nah, I haven't submitted my stuff to anyone.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...03.00007.x/pdf

This PDF includes samples from the other town of my family's origin -- Castellammare del Golfo, as well as several others and compares the variance between them. There hasn't been much analysis done of the people from the mountains, so I can't really say for certain.

FTDNA's Sicily Project suggests that H is definitely the predominant mtDNA HG in Sicily, but H2 is rare. They have two H2a1's, and zero H2a2's.

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/...tion=mtresults

[Pinkpanda93]

H is the most common mtdna in the majority of Europe, except possibly far Eastern Europe.

But given that the paternal lines in Sicily, about 2/3 are of Neolithic origin (E, J, G), mtdna must be significantly native to Europe or Sicilians would cluster differently than they do and further east.

[alfieb]

In my case, further North.

[Pinkpanda93]

I'm not understanding the article apparently because this (if I am interpreting right) seems to go against what I just said:

"The maximum likelihood tree obtained by adding three samples from North-Africa (Algeria and Egypt) and the Middle East (Turkey) provides further information: 54% of times Castellammare, Butera and Sciacca are associated with the Middle East sample, while the remaining samples (Troina, Caccamo, Piazza Armerina and Ragusa) are associated with the two samples from North-Africa."


But I must interpret wrong because if this were true, Sicilians wouldn't cluster in Europe and they do (albeit not generally with Western Europe).

EDIT; maybe it's saying that when North Africa and the Middle East are the only two clusters, that's how it divides. Because with 60 something percent of y-dna lines being Near Eastern, the mtdna cannot possibly follow the same trend or you guys would be clustering in Iraq.

[voyager]

[QUOTE=Pinkpanda93;303586]So Norman ancestry appears to not be spread evenly throughout the population. Because in all honesty the average Sicilian I see online and in person doesn't look Scandinavian. But what mtdna's are frequent in Sicily?

QUOTE]

Normans were partly Viking, partly French and covered almost the whole European range of phenotypes.
Many who settled in Southern Italy were actually Angevin or Flemish or Breton, etc.

In Italian "normanno" can mean both Northman (Viking) and Norman (native of French Normandy).

[alfieb]

In my case, however, it was at least mitochondrially Scando-Norman.

Haven't seen any H2a2a's in France.