Hello, everyone! I’ve been trying to gain access to this board for several weeks but the registration system was broken. Fortunately, it’s been fixed and, obviously, I’m now online!
At the moment, I’m not able to post much (I’m on a commuter train) but will post a lot more later as my paternal lineage is fully Sicilian. For now, I just want to post that I’ve been researching my direct paternal line, the La Marca Family, since the early/mid-1970s. My grandfather was born in Villarosa, Provincia di Enna, his father was from Resuttano, other locations include Marianopoli and Petralia Soprana (yes, they moved around a LOT).
Another matter that I’m very eager to find help on is for other male La Marcas to obtain a Y-DNA test (woman can’t take the Y test because they don’t have a Y chromosome). I’ve had my DNA tested multiple times and, just a couple of years ago, was contacted by a gentleman who was born in Sicily but now lives in Indonesia. We have both had our Y-DNA fully tested (the “Big-Y” test by FamilyTreeDNA) and are essentially a perfect match. However, given that this is a Y test, we should have the same surname - but we don’t - his is Blandini. There could be many reasons for this, which I won’t go into that now.
My own La Marca line currently goes back to the late 1700s (again, it’s been a very difficult line to research) but his line goes back to the 1500s or earlier. Anyway, we have both been working to connect to a common ancestor but given the challenges with the La Marca line, we REALLY need to find other La Marca men (who are not closely related to me) to take the test. So far, he’s been successful in finding other Blandini to take the test - I also match with them.
That’s it for now but I’ll be back later.
Jeff La Marca
