Three men in ySearch all apparently in haplogroup J1:

http://www.ysearch.org/research_start.asp
?uid=CMJ8D&vallist=CMJ8D&vallist=4K499&vallist=VDCGP

Nasrallah, Greek Orthodox from Beirut.
Simon, Ashkenazi Jew from Ukraine.
Rivera, Catholic from Spain.

Simon and Nasrallah have a tMRCA around 1100 CE. Nasrallah and Rivera, around 700 CE.

The Crusades and the Muslim Conquest of Spain? Simon of Sephardi origin?

Any two could be of a single origin, plausibly, but the third must give ... and any of the combinations is possible, or even likely.

This is a mystery that needs solving, and Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA is well aware of it - mention my name in this connection, we've been working on it.

I ama Southern Lebanese froma city called Nabatieh. Lore has it that the city was constructed by the Nabateans nomads who settled in the region after leaving Petra. I have the typical fair hair\green eyes combination of Europeans, so I was wondering if my DNA can be a combination of the Nabateans, Pheonician and any Roman DNA due to the Crusaders who inhabitated the region for a long period of time. I am currently a resident of Texas, United States and willing to participate in any DNA testing regarding the Nabateans and the Pheonicians

Thank you.

Let say I am a strong defender of an ideology because I belong to a certain community and my DNA shoed that I am actually a person belonging to another race or religious group. What would the reaction be? would I continue to defend my idelogy or would I begin defending the rights of the people that my DNA shows I belong to?

Please Dr. Spencer if I could get an answer from you or anyone interested in answering my concerns.

i hate this silly idea when maronite christians of lebanon have this arrogance to trully beleive they are superior to the rest of the middle eastern cultures.

your just a christian sect
and stop this pathewtic racism
someone commented that the christian of lebanon carry the fair skin and blue eyes,anb white skin
this is so so not true as a matter of fact according to findings,and what the eye can see most lighter skin blue eyes,bloond hair are found in south lebanon and on the towns and villages boedering syria,as syrians arte the fairest of the lot,
uauallay the christian comunity in lebanon are the darkest,with greek features,black hair,sharp noses,they also resembel the jews,

i am not being racist here,but the jews that existed in palestine look the most similar to the lebanese..very famous noses.
i am not talking about he jewish people of europe and russia,who are fairer skin.

what do you call the yemenite jews ,,,isrealis??

please go do some home work GLORIA

my family has muslim,christian,mixes
and we are very proud to be lebanese....from arab blood,as most are,religion has nothing to do with it.

another info for you did you know the people that most carry the same DNA of pheonician,and after findings have been connected to each other are the southern lebanese and the maltese,and some were found in carthage.
now we knoe alissar after being threatend with death in tyre ,took refuge in carthage and plenty people traveled with her,and from there they intermarried with other cultures and spread to malta,sicilly and so forth,not to forget cyrus.

Could a sudden incarese in IQ, provided by iodine, explain the "Great Leap Forward?" If so it is easy to assume skills like language would have jumped to the next level (within generation)and along with other advantages of a sudden increase IQ, have propelled humans out of Africa 40 to 50 thousand years ago?

Mr. Spencer Must visit Canary Islands were the almost Extinted "guanches" once lived. Spaniards killed most of them but it may be traces of Phoenicians in some of the inhabitants. Also they should visit Brazil, South america were I heard of certain indians that have Phoenians words in their vocabulary. Many people even talk about Phonician ruins and inscriptions found in rocks in Brazil. Also there are skeletons found in brazil that do not reflect indian ancestry. also something to have in mind is that The phoenicians that inhabited Palestine were Ca'-nanites descends of Ca'-naan, The bible says that Ca'-naan, Cush a Put were brothers. Cush and Put were the ancestors of the people in Etiopia and others parts in Africa. In the begining Phoencians were people that descend of mixed people. Phoenicians based in these facts should be a community linked together by their Semitic language, cultural Traditions and religion and they were of different skin color.

Gents,

Please read the following article and you will get your reply for modern Greek.

Hum Genet (2004) 115: 357–371
DOI 10.1007/s00439-004-1168-9

ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION

F. Di Giacomo . F. Luca . L. O. Popa . N. Akar . N. Anagnou . J. Banyko .
R. Brdicka . G. Barbujani . F. Papola . G. Ciavarella . F. Cucci . L. Di Stasi .
L. Gavrila . M. G. Kerimova . D. Kovatchev . A. I. Kozlov . A. Loutradis .
V. Mandarino . C. Mammi′ . E. N. Michalodimitrakis . G. Paoli . K. I. Pappa .
G. Pedicini . L. Terrenato . S. Tofanelli . P. Malaspina . A. Novelletto

Y chromosomal haplogroup J as a signature of the post-neolithic colonization of Europe

Kind Regards,

A modern Greek of many thousand years old

From what I just found quickly, the origins of Sicilians is a bit of a mystery. The most I found on first pass trying is that around 750 BC when Greeks took control, there were 2 peoples Sicians who appeared to come from mainland modern Italy, and Eliams who are a mystery where they came from.

The only other thing I read was that these mysterious Eliams where considered mountain people and they worshipped an Inanna type Goddess.

I was wondering if they could have had had the same mysterious origins as other peoples like the Akkadians and Phoenicians? Has National Geographic tried to solve that mystery of the origins of the two types of people the Greeks found in Sicily in 750 BC who had been there for a long time previously? It would be a good one to study too.

p.s. The previous poster Tamer said to compare Phoenician to other Semetic groups which is a good idea, and including the modern day Assyrian Christians mostly in Iraq and Iran but also in Lebanon and Syria and around the world diaspora but maybe jus twith the Lebanese ones would make sense for this study.

And while they are at it why don't they study all the middle east Semites to each other. Also I would be curious to the origins of other middle easterns like turkomen, kurds, yezidi, swamp arabs who some say may be ancient babylonians or sumerians... where did the sumerians go?

And what about the ancient Chaldeans who invaded babylon, where did they go... the modern group calling themsleves Chaldean Catholics, scholars say are Assyrians who change from Church of the East to CAtholic Church in 1500s. I would love to see a study of those peoples to see ethnically who they really are since religion has been mixed up with ethnicity in labels.

Same with many Muslims calling themselves Arabs, when many of them are the natives people of Mesopotamia or mixed with the Arab invaders to the region, but many have lost what their original ethnicity is and call themselves Arab because that is their holy language and lingua franca. I would be curious to see. The problem is if this study already put all those in lets say Iraq as being Arab then they have put other mesopotamian ethnicities into the gene marker pool for Arabs... when they should only have used Saudi Arabians to define the control Arab gene pool.

I wonder how they determine their ethnic groups since during the Assyrian Empire many other ethnicities called themselves Assyrian under that rule, during the Greek empire many people called themselves Greek even though they were just under Greek rule but of mesopotamian and other ethnicity origins. How does this study decide what the gene markers are for an ethnciity without having these types of mixings and confusions giving inaccurate migration pattens etc.?

I notice no one from National Geographic posts here answering our questions. If the webmaster reads, coudl you have one of the scientists read here and answer some of the many questions I noticed are still unanswered posted here.

Thanks.

You could test their DNA against the surrounding Arab tribes and see if they are different. All I know about Nabateans is that they spoke Aramaic/Syriac when they first settled the area in Petra Jordan, so they could be any of the Aramaic speaking people of that time including Jews, Assyrians, Arameans, and probably others since it was the lingua franca of the Assyrian empire.

I remember reading that the Nabateans are credited with changing/transforming ARamaic into what evolved into current day Arabic spreading it to Arab tribes being a trade center.

The mystery is that their architecture and worship was a combination of Greek, Assyrian, Babylonian and nomadic tribes of the area. It would be interesting to see if those nomadics still living off the land in that area have any clues in their DNA to who the Nabateans were... if they are indeed their descendents which is likely since people don't just vanish, hopefullly ;)

:)

Also I was reading and noticed people talking about Marioniate and Aramean populations and there is also debate in the Assyrian communities where some claime that some calling themselves Marionites, Arameans, Syrian Christians etc. are really Assyrian descent, and some say the opposite that Assyrians are really those other things. I believe as my grandparents that we are truely Assyrian but it would be nice if a scientific study was done on the community. My only question is that if you don't have the DNA of an ancient Assyrian then how do you know that is what your DNA matches. My relatives look like the ancient reliefs of Assyrians so I have no doubts, but many do, and it rages in debates that get ugly at times on forums, so it would be nice to scientifically show some evidence.

Same with Phoenicians.. if you don't have the DNA of an ancient Phoenican then how can you say that someone is Phoenician? I read Greek history and I notice that they claim people of merit to be Greek that were subjects of the Greek empire but that were ethnically from places like Turkey,Syria, Assyria, etc.. so couldn't you be using as your control population people who are not of that pure ethnicity and causing confusion in your results??

I will try to read more, but if you could post links to articles I would like to learn more before deciding to pay the hundred dollars for the test.

Again, if you test for a scientific study, contact www.aina.org and you can find many Assyrians that I belong to that organization to get volunteers.

Thank you.

If you go to www.aina.org, you can find a lot of information about the dwindling Assyrian minorities in the middle east and in the diaspora. Many were wiped out along with Armenians in the 1915 genocide of Ottoman Christians in Turkey and many are still living in places like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon where they are Christian minorities.

Many have immigrated to communities in America, Sweden, Austrialia, and Europe all around the globe. The Assyrian Christians in the 1500s split into 2 groups, those still calling them selves Assyrian and those calling themselves Chaldean when converting to Catholicism and given that name by the Catholic Church in Rome.

There is a debate currently whether these Assyrians and Chaldeans are the same people, and some Chaldeans believe they come from the ancient Chaldeans who came from south of Babylon and Assyrians from North of Babylon.

A study on that would be interesting also. There are also problems in Iraq and in the diaspora with the fact that Sadam for decades tried to Arabize these Assyrian Christians and on census forms only allowed them to choose Arab as an ethnicity. So some are claiming they are Arab.

There was a genetic study done awhile ago by I Think iti was Hammer at U. Arizona posted on that www.aina.ort site, that showed that the people calling themselves Assyrian Christians were more close genetically to Jordanians than their fellow Iraqis.

I thought that intereting since I read once a theory that the Samaritans of Biblical times were a mixture of Jews and Assyrians and after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem to Rome that the Samaritans fled to modern day Jordan.

I think this would be a very interesting genetic study for you to do next.

Thank you for your interesting work.

p.s. I noticed that someone mentioned how Kahil Gibran was Lebonese, I read once that the social worker that recommened him as a young boy to get artistic and cultural training noted in her latter to the artist that she requested it from that she found this little "Assyrian boy" from Lebanon to be quite a talent and feared that if it was not nurtured that the streets of poverty would have a less fortunate fate for him. Just FYI.

The United Phoenician Party
www.unitedphoenicianparty.org

well only thiefs are trying to take over the phoenician land (or the patry of the canaaneans)

ironicly the two nations of thiefs are the decsendants of abraham weteher by hagar or sarai...

cheers

hail to Phoenicia wherever it stills have its trace...

A convert to Maronite sect is a different issue. For example, a famous Arabic family from Hijaz that settled in Lebanon is the Shihab family. The Shihab family today is Maronite and Sunni because the famous Emir Bashir conversion to Maronite.

Then you have the Arab Christians from Ghassan tribe (Bani Ghassan). Very famous Maronite families such as, Sfeir, Khazzen, Hellou, Howayek, Hbeish, Aridah and many more Maronite families that their origin is documented and can not be denied.

For the one that does not know, the Arab Christians worshiped at Mecca at the dawn of Islam and a picture of the Virgin Mary and Jesus was hung on Mecca.

Of course some Lebanese have Phoenician genes in them with the Greek, Roman, Jews, Arab, Turkish and more but I believe the Maronite Christian are the last in line to claim that Phoenician genes.

I love the historic Phoenicians and I named my daughter after the famous Alissar but how can I claim to have Phoenician genes where I know that my family came to Lebanon 150 years ago??

For non-Lebanese, this issue is being used in Lebanon by some Lebanese as a political issue and they do not care what any DNA test will tell them.

According to their way of thinking, your bloodline is of no significance in determining which racial sub-group u belong to, which is absolutely preposterous. For example, if a groupe of Greeks for example migrates to Canada, and their Greekness is lost after a few generations and they become anglicized, it doesn't make these people Greek? The language you speak does not determine your ethnicity. Another good example is how many African people speak French, so that makes them French now? Ofcourse not, that's ridiculous.

The point is the only way to determine your racial type is by DNA. Forced assimilation and gradual loss of culture cannot alter your genes. An anglocized African cannot become an Englishman.