Sicilian native here

[donriccardo]

Hello guys,

I am new to this forum and I have read a lot of interesting stuff. @sikeliot I see you are very expert about sicilian DNA. I just want to ask for your help in the future to understand more about this stuff, because I am mostly ignorant about haplogroups. I am 100% sicilian, born in Sicily, raised in Sicily but I've been living far away in South East Asia for 15 years. So forgive my english if there could be some mistakes, I am a sicilian native speaker.
Btw, I have tested my DNA with living DNA company and waiting yet for the results. My parents are both sicilians, I have traced my paternal family tree which goes back to the 1600, I know all of my ancestors in detail since that time and they were all sicilians. They were from the small town of Pietraperzia, today under Enna but before under Caltanissetta. However it seems one ancestor of this family came from the town of Modica (Ragusa) and he moved to Pietraperzia in 1657. From my mother side little is known, I only know her dad was from Agrigento but I can't be really sure about that side of the family because there is a rumour (which I believe it's true) my mom's grandfather was the illegitimate child of a famous politician from Agrigento. So I never tried to investigate about my mom's family tree. I hope I can get soon my DNA results so I can share them with all of you and maybe you could help me to read them.

Thank you

[Myanthropologies]

Hey there. Welcome to this forum. In terms of genetics, people from Agrigento appear to be very genetically similar to people from Malta. In GEDmatch calculators, people from Agrigento tend to score around 20-35% Caucasus ancestry (Armenia, Georgia, Chechnya, etc), between 16 and 22% Southwest Asian (Arabia), 21 - 25% Western Hunter Gatherer (pre-Neolithic Western Europe), and 30% Early European Farmer ancestry (Sardinian like DNA). Overall, this mix makes them very similar to Maltese people and people on the Western part of the Sicilian island. Sikeliot can provide more info, as he has read studies on Sicilians.

[donriccardo]

Thank you! Very interesting to know. I have noticed two of my mother's cousins from Agrigento have an amazing resemblance with Turkish people. Everyone in the family say that. However, my grandfather was blonde with blue eyes and so are my brother and my sister. We have a lot of mixed traits in my mom's family but again we are 100% sicilian.

[Sikeliot]

Thank you! Very interesting to know. I have noticed two of my mother's cousins from Agrigento have an amazing resemblance with Turkish people. Everyone in the family say that. However, my grandfather was blonde with blue eyes and so are my brother and my sister. We have a lot of mixed traits in my mom's family but again we are 100% sicilian.

While there is variation this is generally how Sicilians are genetically (keep in mind all of them are related to one another and to Maltese and Aegean islanders, so when I say one group has a "higher amount of" one thing or another I mean relative to other people in Sicily):

1. Messina and the bordering part of Catania are similar to Calabrians and to the southernmost Aegean islands (Crete, Rhodes, etc.) and have a higher amount of Caucasian ancestry.
2. Palermo, Caltanissetta, and Agrigento are similar to the Maltese and to various Jewish groups (including North African Jews), and have a higher amount of Levantine, North African, and even Southwest Asian ancestry.
3. Ragusa, Syracuse, and the southern inland part of Catania have higher Eastern European ancestry, likely from more recent Greek migrations that postdate the Slavic migration to Greece, and are similar to people from Apulia, Basilicata, and southernmost mainland Greece.
4. Trapani is extremely mixed, with lower Caucasian and higher West European ancestry (likely mainland Italian or Norman) than what is average for the island. The northern part of Trapani has higher North African, while the southern part has more Greek.

If you do not feel like reading all of that and want a simplified version: ancient Greek ancestry predating the Slavic invasion of Greece (which has had an impact on a signifiant part of the mainland Greek population) is highest along the eastern and southern coasts, while Middle Eastern and North African ancestry is highest along the north and western coasts as well as the inland regions and Agrigento.

When the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians settled Sicily originally there were 3 populations living there: Elymians in the far west from West Asia, Sicanians in the center who were the natives and dated to the Neolithic, and the Siculi from mainland Italy. The Greeks from the east and the Phoenicians from the west both pushed the indigenous inhabitants further and further inland, and then those inland regions received significant Middle Eastern input under the Carthaginian and Arab colonizations, so all of Sicily is mixed between different groups.

[Myanthropologies]

While there is variation this is generally how Sicilians are genetically (keep in mind all of them are related to one another and to Maltese and Aegean islanders, so when I say one group has a "higher amount of" one thing or another I mean relative to other people in Sicily):

1. Messina and the bordering part of Catania are similar to Calabrians and to the southernmost Aegean islands (Crete, Rhodes, etc.) and have a higher amount of Caucasian ancestry.
2. Palermo, Caltanissetta, and Agrigento are similar to the Maltese and to various Jewish groups (including North African Jews), and have a higher amount of Levantine, North African, and even Southwest Asian ancestry.
3. Ragusa, Syracuse, and the southern inland part of Catania have higher Eastern European ancestry, likely from more recent Greek migrations that postdate the Slavic migration to Greece, and are similar to people from Apulia, Basilicata, and southernmost mainland Greece.
4. Trapani is extremely mixed, with lower Caucasian and higher West European ancestry (likely mainland Italian or Norman) than what is average for the island. The northern part of Trapani has higher North African, while the southern part has more Greek.

If you do not feel like reading all of that and want a simplified version: ancient Greek ancestry predating the Slavic invasion of Greece (which has had an impact on a signifiant part of the mainland Greek population) is highest along the eastern and southern coasts, while Middle Eastern and North African ancestry is highest along the north and western coasts as well as the inland regions and Agrigento.

It's also important to note that most of the "ancient Greek" ancestry comes from the islands apparently

[Sikeliot]

It's also important to note that most of the "ancient Greek" ancestry comes from the islands apparently

It is a mixture of Euboean, Peloponnesian, Cretan, Rhodian, and Anatolian Greek. Euboeans and Peloponnesians today have some degree of Slavic ancestry so they do not match modern Sicilians as well but Crete, Rhodes, and Anatolian Greeks (from the west coast of Asia Minor) are close. Though under Byzantine rule, Sicily and Calabria did receive waves of migration from the then Greek-speaking Middle East, which further contributed to Middle Eastern ancestry from various Hellenized populations. This would have included Hellenized Syrians, Armenians, and others.

[donriccardo]

I got it, thank you. We have so many different physical traits in the family. But maybe the most unusual come from my brothers and sister children. Two of my nieces are red haired and look like Irish. My nephew is a platinum blonde (my sister is a dark blonde and her sicilian/sardinian husband is brown haired with dark skin) looks more german than sicilian. When I have my results ready, everything will be more clear. I think this is the forum I have always been looking for.

[Sikeliot]

I got it all, thank you. When I have my results ready, everything will be more clear.

Pietraperzia is close to Sommatino in Caltanissetta. Here is someone's result from that town if you want to see how they come out on GEDmatch... the list of populations are the top 20 closest to them in the reference set.

# Population Percent
# Population Percent
1 East_Med 30.24
2 West_Med 19.25
3 West_Asian 14.06
4 Atlantic 11.74
5 North_Sea 11.03
6 Red_Sea 6.36
7 Baltic 4.79
8 Sub-Saharan 1.01
9 Southeast_Asian 0.63
10 Northeast_African 0.57
11 Oceanian 0.22
12 Amerindian 0.09
13 Siberian 0.01

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 South_Italian 3.69
2 East_Sicilian 4.68
3 Central_Greek 5.57
4 Italian_Jewish 5.87
5 Ashkenazi 7.49
6 Italian_Abruzzo 7.79
7 Algerian_Jewish 7.8
8 West_Sicilian 7.85
9 Sephardic_Jewish 7.94
10 Greek_Thessaly 10.95
11 Tunisian_Jewish 11.61
12 Greek 11.68
13 Libyan_Jewish 12.09
14 Tuscan 12.11
15 Cyprian 13.57
16 Lebanese_Muslim 17.33
17 Syrian 17.98
18 North_Italian 18.52
19 Bulgarian 19.11
20 Turkish 19.62

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 85.9% South_Italian + 14.1% Libyan_Jewish @ 3.16
2 74.6% South_Italian + 25.4% Italian_Jewish @ 3.3
3 93.9% South_Italian + 6.1% Algerian @ 3.38
4 66.3% Cyprian + 33.7% Spanish_Galicia @ 3.42
5 52.1% Central_Greek + 47.9% Italian_Jewish @ 3.45
6 95.3% South_Italian + 4.7% Moroccan @ 3.46
7 95.9% South_Italian + 4.1% Mozabite_Berber @ 3.53
8 95.9% South_Italian + 4.1% Egyptian @ 3.53
9 97% South_Italian + 3% Saudi @ 3.53
10 95.6% South_Italian + 4.4% Tunisian @ 3.54
11 87.2% South_Italian + 12.8% Algerian_Jewish @ 3.55
12 97.2% South_Italian + 2.8% Yemenite_Jewish @ 3.55
13 96.3% South_Italian + 3.7% Bedouin @ 3.58
14 88.8% South_Italian + 11.2% Ashkenazi @ 3.6
15 60.8% East_Sicilian + 39.2% Italian_Jewish @ 3.6
16 79% South_Italian + 21% East_Sicilian @ 3.6
17 96.9% South_Italian + 3.1% Palestinian @ 3.63
18 99.4% South_Italian + 0.6% Yoruban @ 3.63
19 99.4% South_Italian + 0.6% Mandenka @ 3.63
20 96.6% South_Italian + 3.4% Samaritan @ 3.63

And this person is half from Valguarnera in Enna and San Cataldo in Caltanissetta:

# Population Percent
1 East_Med 30.08
2 West_Med 19.65
3 Atlantic 17.27
4 West_Asian 10.55
5 Red_Sea 6.43
6 North_Sea 5.33
7 Baltic 4.5
8 Eastern_Euro 3.17
9 Sub-Saharan 1.73
10 Oceanian 0.86
11 Northeast_African 0.42

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 West_Sicilian 5.46
2 South_Italian 6.59
3 Algerian_Jewish 6.7
4 Italian_Jewish 7.35
5 Sephardic_Jewish 7.38
6 East_Sicilian 7.53
7 Central_Greek 8.48
8 Italian_Abruzzo 8.9
9 Ashkenazi 9.74
10 Greek 10.85
11 Tunisian_Jewish 11.41
12 Tuscan 11.66
13 Greek_Thessaly 13.41
14 Libyan_Jewish 14.64
15 Cyprian 15.36
16 North_Italian 17.53
17 Bulgarian 19.09
18 Lebanese_Muslim 19.63
19 Tunisian 20.2
20 Syrian 20.31

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 83.2% Algerian_Jewish + 16.8% Southwest_French @ 3.36
2 86.2% Algerian_Jewish + 13.8% French_Basque @ 3.36
3 57.5% West_Sicilian + 42.5% Algerian_Jewish @ 3.42
4 80% Algerian_Jewish + 20% Spanish_Andalucia @ 3.5
5 81.1% Algerian_Jewish + 18.9% Spanish_Valencia @ 3.5
6 82.8% Algerian_Jewish + 17.2% Spanish_Aragon @ 3.62
7 82% Algerian_Jewish + 18% Spanish_Castilla_La_Mancha @ 3.7
8 75.5% Algerian_Jewish + 24.5% North_Italian @ 3.76
9 83.4% Algerian_Jewish + 16.6% Spanish_Cantabria @ 3.77
10 66.7% Algerian_Jewish + 33.3% Tuscan @ 3.82
11 60.6% Cyprian + 39.4% Spanish_Andalucia @ 3.96
12 82.6% Algerian_Jewish + 17.4% Spanish_Cataluna @ 3.97
13 62.9% West_Sicilian + 37.1% Sephardic_Jewish @ 4.08
14 62.3% Cyprian + 37.7% Spanish_Valencia @ 4.08
15 64.6% Cyprian + 35.4% Spanish_Aragon @ 4.08
16 82.6% Algerian_Jewish + 17.4% Spanish_Castilla_Y_Leon @ 4.09
17 81.7% Algerian_Jewish + 18.3% Spanish_Murcia @ 4.11
18 65.5% Algerian_Jewish + 34.5% Greek @ 4.13
19 80.7% West_Sicilian + 19.3% Cyprian @ 4.15
20 81.6% Algerian_Jewish + 18.4% Spanish_Extremadura @ 4.15

[donriccardo]

Pietraperzia is close to Sommatino in Caltanissetta. Here is someone's result from that town if you want to see how they come out on GEDmatch... the list of populations are the top 20 closest to them in the reference set.




And this person is half from Valguarnera in Enna and San Cataldo in Caltanissetta:

Thank you for sharing Sikeliot. Btw, can you explain me the "Single Population Sharing" and "Mixed Population Mode" ? What do they stand for?

[Sikeliot]

Thank you for sharing Sikeliot. Btw, can you explain me the "Single Population Sharing" and "Mixed Population Mode" ? What do they stand for?

Single Population Sharing is basically a list of the top 20 populations, in order, closest to the person. Mixed Population Mode is basically saying "what two ethnicities can this person be modeled as a mixture of".