Angela
Elite member
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- Ethnic group
- Italian
It is interesting that in the Fiorito's IBDs the first Italian region is not Basilicata and Calabria who makes more sense for geography and history but Liguria. A signal of North Italian settlements for sure judging also by the position of Val d'Aosta.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FQOJVWKiN_Y4-IoUUdPIjqfzdN-zH9R-9C_vwcbciCw/edit#gid=0
Thanks a lot for that link. One quibble: in the notes I think "Northwest" is meant, not "Northeast".
Extraordinary that Liguria comes in first for Sicilia, and Aosta second for Calabria. I think I've mentioned before that one of my husband's best clients was a Sicilian American whose family came from Catania. He was an avid genealogist, and had traced his family tree in the male line all the way back to a Genovese who had relocated to Sicilia in the Middle Ages. Apparently they continued to get wives from home for quite a long time. I was more than fond of him for many reasons. He became, in fact, a surrogate father for me when my own father died. He didn't look like him at all, but he looked unnervingly like my Spezzino maternal grandfather: lean and spare, small boned, elegant, light on his feet, and very bright and quick witted. The surname appears both in Liguria and Sicilia, and I don't think modern immigration is the only reason.
Interesting in the link also is that sometimes geography doesn't really explain the genetic relationships. As you say, Toscana is equidistant to Liguria and Emilia, but the link with Emilia is much stronger. Toscana is also equidistant from Emilia and Lazio, and in fact there is the huge barrier of the Appennini between Emilia and Toscana, and yet Toscana is closer to Emilia.