Random Thoughts

Italians: The ancestors of the Italians are identified as Italic peoples, composed of not just the Latins/Romans but also Umbrians, Sabines and others, including the Etruscans who were eventually assimilated into the Roman people; it is generally agreed that the invasions that followed for centuries and also caused the fall of the Roman Empire did not significantly alter their gene pool, because of the relatively small number of migrants to this region compared to the large population of what constituted Roman Italy, which was actually a source of migrants during the days of the empire.

Greek: The second most common ethnicity in Italy, is composed of descendants of Greeks who settled all over the southern part of the peninsula and especially, in Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata and the island of Sicily, a region called “Magna Graecia” (Greater Greece) by the Romans; even today, there are small communities in Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia who still speak an old dialect of Greek, named Griko.