I'm a gypsyologist AMA

[Devlesko]

Just this really, anyone interested I'll answer if I can.

I believe that I have Romany ancestory. @Devlesko how would I go about finding out more about this?

Asia, Persia, perhaps something like Tajikistan, then Mediterranean or East European.
It varies tbh, several of my family including ds2 have Spanish, I have Italian and no Spanish at all.
My ds2 and one of my first cousins have just European and none of the usual associated Romany markers like Asia or Persia.
There's no mistaking we are from the same family, they just skipped that gene.

Sorry but unless you have taken part in a specific Romany research project, Leicester University for example, then you cannot tell. The scientific research projects run by universities are very sophisticated and study DNA in detail.

The commercially available DNA (from ancestry .uk for example) are nothing like the scientific research projects and can only reliably give clues to near or distant relatives by the y haplo part of the test which is male only and only on one line, direct father to son. Which is only a tiny part of that mans DNA profile anyway.

The autosomal part of the commercially available tests, AKA ethnicity test, is notoriously unreliable and any low percent in the results is just noise. It is stated in the FAQs info that these low percent results should be disregarded. It's also worth remembering that different companies use different control DNA samples and that identical twins can show different results, even from the same company. You are being compared to a tiny group of control samples

So someone's "ethnicity" test might say

65% British Isles
20% Scandanavia
10% Iberiban Peninsula
5% North Africa

The Iberian and Afican low percent results are to be ignored. They are just noise and meaningless. As stated in the FAQs info

MrsAvocet

That's really interesting and I've read similar to your post before. I know very little about DNA but I get by for what I need.
I know what you mean about likeness.
I knew my dm had curly hair and my granny. But somebody posted a photo of my gr gr granny from the same side and gr x4. When I showed my dil she was gobsmacked as both my dgc have curly hair, so the females have had curly hair for centuries. My eldest dgc looks the spitting image of gr grandma x4, the family suddenly became interested in "Dead Gypsies" as they so lovingly put it.

Flax

When thousands are comparing their DNA from the same group, you can generally say what markers are evident to a certain degree.
No it's not always reliable as the Spanish marker I mentioned, I don't have any but other family members do.
Those from or associated (married into the old families) are usually pretty similar.
I have a cousin with 25% Jewish, not sure which. I don't have any, but we share lots of other well known markers and we follow the migration pattern.

DR YANG

I want your Gedmatch number now.
We could be distant cousins
I'm dying to know does your DNA follow the migration pattern.

How do you know which names are Romany? I've often wondered if my Dads side are Romany as they seem to have been European travellers. I really do need to start a family tree and I definitely want my DNA looked at

AllTheWhoresOfMalta

If you haven't done anything yet, if you have a name you can search either google or Ancestry, you don't have to pay and can get a free couple of weeks. This should be enough to find out if you are lucky enough to share a Romany name somewhere.
After this, you could do a DNA test, buy an ancestry or other membership. One of them has a photo enhancer that allows colour to old black and white photo's. They are amazing, I cried when I first saw my ancestors in colour.
It's really like anything else, you take it a step at a time and go as far as you like.
Is there a name you have, that you can start with?

When thousands are comparing their DNA from the same group, you can generally say what markers are evident to a certain degree.

It depends what you mean by markers
Yes as I said the Y haplo test can give you clues to near or distant cousins and you can compare results and see that you are probably related, but that is only a test for men and only a test for one direct line (father to son), so it cannot tell you about the origins of that mans ancestors on all the other lines he has

But this is not how the autosomal test, aka the ethnicity test, works at all

No it's not always reliable as the Spanish marker I mentioned, I don't have any but other family members do.

What do you mean by Spanish marker? Is this the ethnicity test (autosomal)

Those from or associated (married into the old families) are usually pretty similar.
I have a cousin with 25% Jewish, not sure which. I don't have any, but we share lots of other well known markers and we follow the migration pattern.

I think you are talking about the ethnicity test (autosomal) . These tests are not compared to other people who have taken the test. They are compared to a stock sample. This stock sample is tiny and in some cases only a dozen or so samples they already have. They are not other testers samples

25% is bordering on low, so could be inconclusive and not mean anything

The autosomal/ethnic test, the ones that give a geographical area by percent, are unreliable

I'm going to decline your invitation to joust, @Flaxmeadow. Having read some of the other threads you've posted on, it's clear you enjoy engaging in endless, attritional side arguments that end up derailing other people's threads, which would be a shame on this occasion, I think. In any case, I'm pretty certain that everyone else here (and everywhere probably) can grasp the issues around identity that witnessing racial hatred and self-hatred within your own family could cause if you didn't understand that that is what you had seen, and then all over again once you did. If only my parents had had your insight that discrimination on the basis of Romany heritage didn't 'make sense in this part of Europe' because of the lack of significant racial difference...

Keep up the good work @Devlesko. I've found the family history board now. I'm not a huge fan of fb, especially where very personal data is concerned, so I probably won't join for now but I think I've found someone in RL who can help me, especially as I already had a lot of family tree data til I hit the dead end. I'll PM you if this thread isn't still active by the time I know the details, as it would be nice to let you know how the story ends. (Or continues.)

... your insight that discrimination on the basis of Romany heritage didn't 'make sense in this part of Europe' because of the lack of significant racial difference...

I didnt say that though did I. Please do not misquote me again

Very interested. I'm a Smith, is this a Romany name.

Conquest, thank you very much I would love to keep in touch. I understand where you are coming from with the groups, it's not for everyone.
I do hope that I'm coming across as helpful and not pushing. It's a difficult balance of encouraging, being helpful but obviously not knowing how far some would like to go. I get so involved as it's my passion.

IndieRo

Smith, good luck
I was going to post about this so now is as good a time as many.
Ok, if i sound condescending and too simple it's so I can understand it myself, so apologies.
Some families were well know for intermarriage, not just first cousins, unfortunately.
I have some smith matches where I know the person is a first cousin once removed as her mam and mine were first cousins.
Now, my DNA comes out as fifth cousin because we match further away too. I still have the first cousin match but in my tree she has two separate relationships to me.
Smith is one of the main Romany names, and a big part of my tree
Lots have been written about them and if you could find which line you are the sky really is the limit ito gaining info.
There are two words that refer to this that you can look up to understand what I mean. Endogamy, and consanguinity.
Some of my matches appear numerous times in my tree, some both maternal and paternal sides.

Flax

It really doesn't have to be that complicated though.
When I get a match I consider many things. If it's recent then there are records to download. If there is DNA you can tell which line from the chromosomes. I know that certain matches are from a welsh line just by the chr we share.
yes, you can make it more complicated but if you can manage without, why make it difficult.
DNA, records, folk law, photographs, publications etc all go to providing evidence.

lore Arghhhhh!

Devlesko

Are you talking about the (male only) Y haplo test?

There are 3 totally different types of test.

The surnames thing.
Gypsies took English surnames but the vast majority of people with those surnames, eg Smith, will not be Romany. You cannot tell by surnames alone.

Well, you have helped me.

I agree, you can't tell by surname alone but Smith (Petulengro) was/is a popular Romany surname, if people have other indicators or even a hunch, they can investigate further.
Oh, BTW, if you google Petulengro you'll find a branch of the family involved in Horoscopes.
It's a Spanish name, thought to have come through Cornwall.

Don't get me on the tests, I have no idea, if I match I contact the person to clarify where they fit in if I'm doubtful. It rarely happens though as most of us are matching somewhere.
I understand what you mean by noise, but that doesn't always follow for Romany families, I'm told due to the consanguinity and endogamy.
I've had noise of 7cM show a common ancestor and their place most obvious, following straight down. I've others at 20 odd cM that I have no matches to.

Conquest

You sound lovely and I can't wait to see what you come up with and so glad you have found some help.
I will keep this thread going if I can, perhaps as it dies down I can post some helpful things for anyone continuing.
So don't go

Slightly odd thing to add but I've worked on a lot of oil/ gas/ water underground pipelining jobs around the U.K. and rest of the world and the lead experts from a U.K. perspective in the early days in the 70's and 80's onwards were often Gypsies.

All a bit of a dark art but hugely respected by highly paper qualified civil engineers to get the job done dealing with massive multi million pound projects in what is often a highly dangerous and very technical job. Some great tales on some of the worksites about how they used to deal with bigwigs down from the London office who tried to tell them what's what

Pipeliner

Thank you so much for sharing this, I have no idea and have never even heard this mentioned.
This is what is so good about Mnet, all the amazing info.
I'll have a look at this, I don't suppose you have any names or areas?

(Linguistics background here) Romany language is actually very well-studied. In the U.K. it tends to be a base of English dialect grammar, whatever that is locally, plus a lot of words and some grammatical features which are Romany in etymology. And vice versa: English dialects have borrowed a fair few Romany words (but afaik no grammar).

The study of mixed languages like this is a specialist branch of linguistics and in no way as simple as one group taking on the dialect of a place and adding in a few ‘slang’ words. (Slang has a highly specialised use in linguistics and doesn’t apply here.)
It’s critical when studying how languages develop to realise that all languages work like this: there’s a social group, another group joins them economically/politically or conquers them and both languages are affected by change in various ways. There being a lot of English grammar in UK Romany isn’t particularly surprising.

(I can’t remember who was writing about Romany being English dialect words, it was a long way down the thread, but I had to respond!)

Typo: *being English dialect and slang words

Thank you.
I have been on the peripheral with the language study I must admit, but from what I do know what you say rings true.
This is about as far as I get, but find it interesting how the words are a combination of various other languages.
I was contacting a museum in Wales before covid, can't remember off hand but it keeps records of Welsh Kale spoken up until the 60's, I know some of my ancestors spoke this language.

(It’s not my area of expertise at all, Romany, but a language is a language and identity really matters. I speak a minority language myself and get this aaalllllll the time. How is it a language? How is it not just some slang words? Why do you bother? Why do you need signs? But someone from Dorset can’t understand a Geordie so if that’s English then it’s all English....etc. People spend years studying the origins and development of all of language and you can’t write the way you speak and think off as a bit of slang! We are naturally language snobs, just as we are social snobs, and you can see this in how much value is given and where.)

Thank you very much, you speak with passion about language it's lovely to see.
I just love discovering the basics, it's all I really have time for, but as stated I'd love to learn Welsh Kale, nobody speaks it now though.
I think it's amazing how the academic bods work tirelessly to keep some languages from extinction.

I had a brief and i mean brief conversation with Yaron Matras
It was before I started to become better read, and had no idea who he was. Oh, the embarrassment now. He was lovely and pointed me in the direction of the basics.
I like looking at a word and finding the origin when it's broken down. Romany words seem to be a mix of many different countries and I do know that this was paramount in proving the migration pattern 1,500 years ago.
It's important for research for lots of different subjects? for want of a better word, to be included.