Roman Descent

[Caius Valens]

Greetings All Caius here with a question, Would you consider yourself too be of Roman Descent? Does your Family name have a bit of Latin in it, or is your face straight of a Denarius Coin shock: Just having fun let me know PS I dont think Romans are ugly :wink: As my family name is a Roman name thats been made too fit into the local culture, kinda like Ambrosius in Welsh has been turned to Emrys or Cornelius into Cornel in English . Just having fun :lol: Caius /Thom R

[richsc]

OK, so maybe you don't sound Roman, but you have at least 2 to the 20th power relatives, so you're probably related to everyone in europe at least, and a lot of the rest of the world.

[Jona Lendering]

Would you consider yourself to be of Roman Descent?

Yes, and I can prove it. Here is the evidence. If I go back one generation, I have two ancestors: my dad and mum. Two generations, four ancestors. Three generations, eight. To go back to the age of Augustus, we go back twenty centuries, at least sixty generations; then I have at least 1,152,900,000,000,000,000 ancestors. Because there were only about 80,000,0000 Romans, the chance that I have at least one Roman ancestor is about 14,412,000,000 to 1.

I have a friend who can actually trace back his official line for centuries, but that's because he's a Cohen, which means he descends from a Jewish priestly family, and -if we take the Bible literally- from Aaron. About 98% of the world's Cohens are indeed DNA-related.

Addition: I just see that Richard makes the same type of argument. Isn;t it funny that two people are having exactly the same thought at exactly the same moment?

[Comerus Gallus]

At least from my father side, it could be a posibility, but because I dont have a geneaology tree, I just can asume... But our surname have Latin root & alude to a goddes of the Palatine Hill, plus come from the Roman City of Lucus Augusti (today Lugo), where roman citizen live for centuries, and many kings were crowned.... Its roman walls can be seen around the town... Also ethnologer candistinguish in this modern day, who is Roman or Celt by their scientific methods etc...

Also the Roman population is disperced & concentrated in other towns & places that from history is known to be roman....

For example I have a particular, personal family friend from Galicia, just at north of Lugo( Lucus Augusti), that its people is Roman in origin, they are called : The Marinos, because they live by the sea, & live from it.

Also I have a copy of their geneaology, and well prove Roman descent... At the time of the Moorish invasion, a Hero of their family, help as others did conquer for the King, a town taken by Moors, and in thanks for the King, his descendant would have the new name of the Town as surname... In this case was Moya, it was a costume & great honor at that time... not Roman as many Hispano roman population names etc have... Many would have surnames that proceed from personal names that werent roman, but some doeas as was Nunez, from Nuno... etc....


BTW: my father look very like Sylvester Stalone, & not Celtic look, his father has a roman nose, but it was well know that the Celts or Gauls of Gallicia have them jejeje!

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

My grandfathers and grandmothers came from Illyricum (Dalmatia), from Bononia (Bologna, Italia) and from high Latium. My great-grandmother was from a noble woman from Abruzzo (Italian region). My family name come from the lacus Sabatinus (lago di Bracciano, 30 km from Roma) and from the mounts sabatini that surround it. The rustic tribe sabatina was one of the 35 roman tribes at the end of the III century B.C. Anyway the family name Sabatini is rather common in the below of the Po river Italy. Roman enough, maybe.

Valete,

[Tarbicus]

I'm a plastic scouser (Wirral), so more probably Viking and/or Irish, but part Scottish as well for sure. Nope.

[Publius Militiares]

My familys name comes directly from a swedish mercenary in the 30years war. I got the name over my grandfather (mother side). My grandmother comes from the Steiermark in Austria. My other grandparents were born at the coast of what is today Poland.
All in all not very Roman.... but as Barbarian in the late roman army it fits quite well :twisted:

[Virilis]

I don`t have very strong "roman roots" either! I have swedish and austrian blood from my mothers side. My fathers forefather distinquished himself in the Gustavus Adolphus army in the 30 years war in the 17th century. He was part of the so-called "hakkapeliitta" cavalry and was nominated as a commander of the Hämeenlinna castle very briefly before he died. He got a name "Silfverharnesk" (silver armour?) and this heraldic plate is still in the old Hattula church near Hämeenlinna...

[Titus Martius]

Well...unfortunately I haven't got much roman blood. My surname Lokaj (from french laquais) means footman. My ancestors were really footman's from about 17th century...and they were slavs or germans so I am poor barbarian!

But one of my great-grandfathers was legionary!...not in roman legion, but in WWI Czechoslovakian legion! :lol:

[richsc]

Unless your ancestors all grew up on islands you all have Roman blood one way or another: the math argues that convincingly. And, you cannot account for the travels of every ancestor, male as well as female.

[Titus Martius]

Unless your ancestors all grew up on islands you all have Roman blood one way or another: the math argues that convincingly. And, you cannot account for the travels of every ancestor, male as well as female.

That's true.

[Tarbicus]

True to a great extent, but not always the case. There was a recent programme that took DNA samples from people who espoused themselves as the ultimate in 'Englishness', including Margaret Thatcher's daughter, and volunteered to undergo DNA tests. Most, barring ex-government minister Norman Tebbit, were actually far from it, and one dominant DNA trait was East European, typically Ukrainian. One woman found to be mostly Romany Gypsy threatened to sue the programme. Of course, western European also was a high mix, but it ain't so cut and dry, especially the fervent Anglophile who turned out to be only a few generations removed from his black ancestry.

[Jona Lendering]

One aspect that may be mentioned: what doe you mean by descent? The official line, or the genetical line? There is some evidence that about 5% of the children are not their father's son or daughter (I'm not quite sure about the exact figure, but it was amazingly high). That means that when tyou go back fourteen generations (say, to the year 1600), there's less than 50% chance of a correct genetical lineage.

And what do we do with adoption?

[Tarbicus]

And what do we do with adoption?

It's very Roman...

[Emeraldweapon7d]

as far as i know i'm 3/4 scandinavian. the other 1/4 is split between the UK and germany via italy. as far as i know my last name is the work for a funky italian drinking vessal.