Deep Roots
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I've been piecing together bits of information from the DNA tests that several of us took to determine our deep roots. The results are fascinating! Because mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from our mothers stays very stable over tens of thousands of years, we are able to trace our direct maternal path. Paternal DNA associated with the Y chromosome has a similar constancy. Consequently, each of us cousins will have different paths to our direct maternal or paternal ancestor, but those of us who share common grandparents in the past few hundred years will share these same clan grandparents. This is what I found out.
Milanese Cousins - Descendants of Giuditta Zocchi (w/o Venancio Morosi and mother of Teresa, Carlo and Carolina Morosi)
My direct genetic "clan mother" is Tara, who lived in Tuscany near the Arno River approximately 17k years ago. It was near the end of the Ice Age and about the time Europeans first began building boats and playing flutes. The glacial melting of this period coincides with the possible origin of the Great Flood stories, when the glacial melting caused both a rising sea level and periodic sudden floods when ice dams gave way.
Tara is one of the dozen European 
daughters of Eve identified by the genetic anthropological research of Dr. Bryan Sykes. Tara's daughters founded various branches, or subclades, such as T2, my maternal haplogroup that includes me, my mother, her mother, etc . Jesse James and Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, have been typed as T2. Tara's descendants make up approximately 8% of the European population. However, most notably, Tara's daughters are considered the matriarchal founders of the Celtic civilization.
Tara's clan either traveled over or around the Alps to southern Germany and Switzerland where the Celtic Civilization began. Also known as "Gauls" by Julius Caesar, the Celts were adept at jewelry making and crafts. They were early ironsmiths. Archaeological sites show they used iron pots suspended from tripods over their fires to cook their grains…. like my grandmother would have cooked polenta over her hearth as a girl in Cardano al Campo. The Celts invaded the Po River Valley more than once, but most notably in the 5th century BC when they conquered the entire peninsula, including Rome and Sicily. They subsequently returned Rome to Roman rule, for a ransom, and were conquered themselves by Caesar.
I can't know whether my many times great maternal grandmother migrated directly from Tuscany to Cardano al Campo, only about 150 miles away, or if she arrived with one of the trans-Alpine Celtic invasions of Lombardy. However, given the regional history and the family names of Luigi and Hugo (derivatives from the Celtic god Lugh), we can be confident that our Milanese ancestors include the Celtic sons and daughters of Tara.
Favaloro Cousins - Descendants of Julia Lo Chirco (w/o Serafino Favaloro and mother of Antonia, Antonio, Vito, Gaspar Frank, Leo, Rosalie and Ann Favaloro)
Julia was the direct descendant of Helena, the originator of the mtDNA haplogroup known as H. 
Helena lived 25,000 years ago on the southwestern seacoast of France during the most severe portion of the Ice Age. Her tribe and all the other tribes of the region assembled in the Dordogne River Valley of France for an annual autumn hunt when the massive prehistoric herds migrated south for the winter. The valley is famous for the painted caves of Lascaux that document those migrations.
Helena’s clan were expert knappers. They made all sorts of sharp tools, such as, awls, knives and spears. Knapping and hunting were their primary industries. They depended on the reindeer and bison of that time not only for food, but also for the warmth of their hides. Like her many times great grand-daughter, Mama Julia, Helena spent much of her time making clothing for her family. She often sewed by prehistoric candle light from a stone basin filled with animal fat. Helena made the wick by twisting strips of tree bark into a cord. Helena’s sewing needles were fashioned out of bone. The hides she scraped and tanned herself was her material. She lined hoods, mittens and shoes with rabbit and squirrel fur. She may have decorated some of her clothing with patterns and color, with fringe and beads.
Helena was the most prolific of the European clan mothers. Over 40% of the modern European population can trace their maternal line directly back to Helena. Helena’s line includes 41 subclades, daughter branches. She or one of her many daughters may have drawn on the cave walls. That art may still be visible in the Dordogne Valley
Favazza Cousins - Descendants of Margherita Russo (w/o Francesco Paolo Favazza and mother of Giuseppe, Grazia, Giovanna, Caterina, Salvatore, Maria, Pietro, Paolo Favazza, and step mother of Ernesto "Giacomo" Vigliano)
Margherita's clan mother was also Helena, who lived 25k years ago in southwest France. However, Margherita’s line 
is descended from the daughter known as H1, the oldest of the subclades. Although over 40% of Europeans are descendent from Helena, the H1 branch is rather sparse. Let’s you and I call this H1 grandmother ‘Herita. The only European pocket where ‘Herita’s descendants are numerous is the Spanish Basques (27%). ‘Herita’s branch is much more prolific in North Africa. ‘Herita’s descendants are common among the Moroccan Berbers (20%) and most numerous among North African Tuaregs (61%). Both the Berber and Tuareg are matriarchal societies who give precedence to female blood lines. The nomadic Tuareg range through the entire Saharan desert, to the Mediterranean coast. The Tuareg are known as the “Blue Men of the Sahara” because of their predominantly blue clothing.
My grandmothers in ‘Herita’s line may have been copper skinned. Some may have had red tattoos on their faces. They would have worn veils on their heads and goat leather sandals on their feet as they traveled the hot Sahara sands from oasis to oasis. Can’t you see them? I can. But the Sahara wasn’t always a desert. Its desertification was a gradual process that began about 6,000 years ago and ended about 3,000 years ago.
About 10,000 years ago, most of the Sahara and North Africa
were savanna grassland. When ‘Herita’s nomadic daughters first inhabited North Africa, it was lush and fragrant. It was a diverse ecosystem, home to giraffe, elephant and zebra. It was a paradise. The oases are Mother Earth’s ancient trace memory of life in that greener time. The desert oases are not unlike our human mtDNA. They both remind us of who we were.
Terrasini & Cinisi Cousins - (all)
One of our cousins has been typed as U3b1. The clan mother of mtDNA haplogroup U is Ursula. Ursula lived over 45k years ago in Europe near Delphi, during the ice age. Her tribe originated in the near East 60k years ago, the first to leave Africa. Ursula’s nomadic tribe camped in caves also used by cave bears, hunted bison as a tribe and shared their world with Neanderthal man. Ursula's tribe was the first modern humans to penetrate Central Europe. Her daughters were also among the first to reach Great Britain.
Despite this prehistoric history, the U3b subclade is very small… and, it is also very interesting. So interesting, it has its own clan mother, Uma. The sons and daughters of Um
a make up only about 1% of the general European population, but between 36-56% of the Romani, aka the gypsies. These nomadic populations inhabit Bohemia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, etc.
I can only trace my relationship to my Terrasini cousin on this branch through a combination of male and female descent. Therefore, I cannot provide a common maternal ancestor to whom a specific subgroup of us can relate. However, we have traced this cousinship line back to the early 1700s through Aiello, Lovasco, and Brancaleone lines, and beyond into the Tocco line. Since, as a fellow Terrasini genealogist suggests, it seems anyone with relations in Terrasini that long ago is related to everyone else with equally deep Terrasini roots, I feel confident in saying, we have gypsy blood in our veins. Could this explain why every Halloween I insisted on dressing as a gypsy and having a tambourine? It felt right:)
Frontiero Branch - Descendants of Rosalia Favazza (w/o Giuseppe Frontieri and mother of Rose, Caterina, Joe, Ben, Salvatore, Fred, Antoinette, Priscilla, Mary, Pasquale)
One of our cousins has a maternal haplogroup of U5a1. Also 
descended from Ursula, the ancient U5a1 subclade along with her sister U5b1 seems to have to have been bottlenecked in the general region of Finland about 27k years ago. Ursula’s tribe was likely trapped by a glacier for approximately 10k years. However, when the glacier melted, our hunter-gatherer grandmothers were the first to re-populate northern Europe during the Neolithic period. Approximately 10% of European-Americans are part of the U5 branch of Ursula’s family. The DNA analysis puts the highest frequency of Ursula’s U5a1 children in northern Europe, especially among the Sami of Lapland. Additionally, there are currently 8 named daughter subclades of U5a1. There is also a tantalizing as yet unnamed branch of U5a1 that is showing up in very small numbers in southern Italy and Sicily.
Ancient Favazza Grandfathers
The progenitor of our Favazza family is the originator of paternal haplogroup G. He lived 30k years ago in the Levant part of the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. He was a Paliolithic hunter-gatherer living in a semi-nomadic tribe. There are a number of G subclades, or sons of our prehistoric grandfather whose bloodlines are traceable. Our Favazza branch is the subclade G2a.
Let’s call this ancient G2a grandfather of ours, “Giuseppe.” Giuseppe and his sons were the first to domesticate goats and sheep while they were living in the Caucasus mountain region about 12k years ago. Giuseppe’s sons are rare in Northern Europe but make up to 10% of the Mediterranean population. The spread and distribution of Giuseppe’s G2a Y chromosome through Europe is also associated with the reach of the Roman empire. The mummified 5,300 year old Otzi the Iceman from the Italian Alps is a member of the G2a-L91 subclade, a descendant of our Giuseppe on a different branch than the Favazza family, in other words, a cousin.
The earliest G2a populations include the Cardium Pottery Culture. 
Beginning about 6400-6200 BC, in Epirus and Corfu, Giuseppe’s family began imprinting distinctive earthware with seashell designs. They lived in village settlements in Albania and Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic coast between 6100 and 5900 BC. Most remarkable about our family origin is that the Cardium Pottery Culture of Giuseppe spread across the Mediterranean through Italy and Sicily all the way from Dalmatia to the coast of Iberia and southern France in just 5 or 6 generations, along with goat herding and the beginning of village life. Anthropologists have determined that the only way this spread of ideas and skills could have happened so fast was by boat. This gives our Giuseppe and his sons claim to the title of maritime pioneers. Our seagoing G2a grandfathers predated the Phoenicians and Sea People by 4,000 years.
Sea People and Phoenicians
I wish I could say I have found a definite DNA connection to 
the Sea People or Phoenicians, too. I haven’t, but really, that is still an open question. However, scientists are suggesting that the cultures of the Phoenician and Sea People might have resulted less from clan than from life choice. Given that our family has chosen fishing for at least 500 years, our paternal haplogroup is known as the earliest of the maritime explorers, and that the paths of the Phoenicians intersect with our own, even originating in the “Levant” which was part of Phoenicia, I claim the them as my ancestors.
ABC: Anatolia, Basques and Caucasus
In looking at the even deeper ancestry of our direct maternal ancestors, Anatolia (Turkey) was mentioned many times. There is a tradition that claims refuges from ancient Troy, the Elymians, settled in the Castellamare Gulf where Terrasini lies. The DNA seems to supports that claim.
The Near East or West Asia is also the obvious entry point of essentially all modern Europeans and Asians who came out of Africa. The Caucasus Mountains pop up repeatedly as having a significant percentage of our haplogroups and/or as being suspected as a place of origin.
It seems likely that Helena’s daughter who is also our direct ancestor through Margherita Russo spent some time in Basque country on the Iberian peninsula before migrating into North Africa. ‘Herita may have been born in this region of the Pyrenees. The Basques are known as the oldest ethnic group in Europe. Their community is believed to have originated in the Stone Age, and partially due to their mountainous isolation, retained a constancy not found elsewhere in Europe or Indo-Asia. This hypothesis is supported by their many unique traits, such as their one of a kind language and their high level of RH negative blood. A Basque saying is, “Before stones were stones, and God was God, Basques were Basques.” They also are likely our cousins.
Ancestry Composition
Although our DNA can amazingly provide us with the profile of a specific single maternal and paternal ancestor at a specific point in time that is scientifically 
accurate, our more recent ancestral composition is still a mix of science and art. That may improve over time as the DNA of more and more people enters the genealogical databases. Still, by comparing my speculative ancestry profile for approximately the last 500 years to those of my cousins, several things did stand out. Essentially all of us seem to have between 1 and 2% of our ancestry associated with Iberia and with the Balkans, and ~3% or more with North Africa and the Middle East. Most of us have a half percent sub-Saharan African blood in our veins. Like most Europeans, we are between 2 and 3% Neanderthal. Our Italianness varies. I'm 70% Italian and most of the rest is "Southern European" but other Sicilian cousins who identify themselves as 100% Italian/Sicilian have found significant percentages of deep ancestry much further afield, resulting in a lower percentage of "Italian." How interesting!
Blue & Green Eyes
Although scientists still don't really understand eye color, they claim that all the blue eyed people in the world are descended from a single individual who 
had the blue eye mutation. He or she lived on the Black Sea. Since blue eyes were so startlingly novel, those blue eyed children of this individual were highly sought after as mates, spreading the blue eye gene throughout Europe and beyond.
Less is known about green and hazel eyes. However, Iceland, inhabited by the Celtic and Scandinavian descendants of Tara, is home to the highest concentration of green eyed people in the world. I believe it's from Tara that my mother's family got its strawberry tinged hair and greenish eyes. Tara's descendants include the Normans who also came to Sicily, perhaps bringing the fair coloring that many Sicilians share. It is because of the Normans and other north European occupiers of Sicily that many of us get our more varied non-Mediterranean DNA analysis.
Ultimately, we may not know the migration path that resulted in Grandpa Joe Favazza's blue eyes, but we know a blue eyed ancestor of ours lived on the Black Sea between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. We are looking into his or her eyes whenever we see blue eyes in our own family.
Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF)
One of the reasons I chose 23andMe as my genealogical service was they also provide medical reports. Their primary mission is genetic research. The data they collect from their genealogical business supports this research. I found the health reports very interesting. A couple of them are actually proving useful. However, one report was a quite a surprise. We have FMF in our family line. *Note
It is rare, but FMF is found in Sicily, Greece and other Mediterranean countries. Apparently the FMF gene is most common among Armenians (1:500) and among Turks (1:1,000). It evolved as a type of protection against malaria. Certain infections, like malaria, have a harder time taking hold in someone with the FMF gene. From personal experience, I suspect it also makes you somewhat resistant to the flu. On the other hand, having two copies of the gene means you're going to be sick a lot, if not from malaria to which you are resistant, then from your own tendency to develop a fever when stressed or chilled. I'm sharing this information because it is IN OUR FAMILY BLOOD LINE. If you have a child who is always getting fevers and/or pleurisy or other abdominal inflammations, test for FMF. FMF has some serious risks for those who have frequent attacks, but those risks are manageable.
And I wonder…… Vito Lo Chirco died of a "fever" when still a young man. It could have been anything, obviously. But if Vito had Familial Mediterranean Fever, and if he developed pleurisy or a kidney problem because of an attack…. well if not Vito, there were others in our family who passed this rather interesting protection against malaria along to us.
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*Note: The 23andMe business model is unique in providing genetic health reports directly to the consumer. They had a little dust-up with the FDA while the regulatory agency considered “public health consequences” but that is in the past. 23andMe provide both DNA matches and FDA approved health reports.
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Before you buy: 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and AncestryDNA are the ONLY autosomal tests that use the latest technology and identify your DNA matches, i.e. relatives. The National Geographic Geno 2.0 test uses the same technology but does NOT provide matching data that allows the participant to identify blood relatives. (Source: DNA Testing Advisor Jan 2014)
by
Karen Favazza Spencer
May 12, 2013 - March 9, 2016
Sources & Resources:
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•DNA Testing for Genealogy. CeCe Moore. 2012.
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•DNA test with health reports from 23andMe. 2013.*
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•DNA test without health reports or family matching from National Geographic.
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•Haplogroup G2a. Eupedia. http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_G2a_Y-DNA.shtml
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•Sykes, Bryan. The Seven Daughters of Eve. 2001.
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•Wikipedia.
Appendix
The percentage of DNA we have in common with a relative gives us a general idea of the relationship. Of course, there is some fudge factor associated with the mixing of DNA that will result in a percentage point or two either way. Similarly, cousin marriages and the size of the DNA sampling may skew the results. However, statistically we can predict the answer to the following question pretty accurately.
How much DNA do I have in common with my relatives?
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50% - Mother, father, siblings, children
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25% - Grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, half-siblings, double 1st cousins
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12.5% - 1st cousins , g-grandparents, g-aunts/uncles, half-aunts/uncles, half nephews/nieces
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6.25% - 1st cousins once removed, half 1st cousins
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3.125% - 2nd cousins, 1st cousins twice removed
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1.563% - 2nd cousins once removed
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0.781% - 3rd cousins, 2nd cousins twice removed
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0.391% - 3rd cousins once removed
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0.195% - 4th cousins
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0.0488% - 5th cousins
Ancestors from Deep History
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