About us
So far, our project has established that the RUSSO surname (and surname variants) is extraordinarily diverse in terms of its genetic origins, meaning that the name was assigned to many different families independently. We now have members in the project from almost all the major genetic haplogroups! Most people with the RUSSO surname (and its variants) had their ancient roots in either Spain or Italy. Indeed, RUSSO is currently the third most common surname in Italy.
While the majority of the participants in this project had Catholic roots, there are also at least two separate Sephardic Jewish clusters with this surname whose ancestors fled the Inquisition in Spain and Sicily. Both clusters settled in the former Ottoman Empire, including Greece, Turkey, and Macedonia, but they are not closely related to one another.
"Sephardic Group #1" is the larger of the two groups, and its members lived in Turkey and on the island of Rhodes, which is today a part of Greece. "Sephardic Group #2" is from northern Greece and from just across the border in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. We have also sent out test kits to Sephardic Jews with ancestry from the Greek cities of Salonika (Thessalonica) and Athens, and we suspect that they will also match Group #2.
There is also a RUSSO male listed in the ySearch.org database who tested with a different DNA testing firm, not FamilyTreeDNA.com. For that reason, I cannot add his results to the automatically-generated data table below. However, I can link to his ySearch.org results page, which show his 37-marker values (which are not exactly the same 37 markers that FamilyTreeDNA tests). His haplogroup is not listed, but judging from his marker values, he is strongly predicted to be in haplogroup J (subclade unknown). His ancestor is reported to be from Messina, Sicily, Italy. It is definitely possible that he and project member #N32799 may be related, as both have roots in Italy and are in haplogroup J; expanded testing of #N32799's results may help clear up those questions.
While the majority of the participants in this project had Catholic roots, there are also at least two separate Sephardic Jewish clusters with this surname whose ancestors fled the Inquisition in Spain and Sicily. Both clusters settled in the former Ottoman Empire, including Greece, Turkey, and Macedonia, but they are not closely related to one another.
"Sephardic Group #1" is the larger of the two groups, and its members lived in Turkey and on the island of Rhodes, which is today a part of Greece. "Sephardic Group #2" is from northern Greece and from just across the border in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. We have also sent out test kits to Sephardic Jews with ancestry from the Greek cities of Salonika (Thessalonica) and Athens, and we suspect that they will also match Group #2.
There is also a RUSSO male listed in the ySearch.org database who tested with a different DNA testing firm, not FamilyTreeDNA.com. For that reason, I cannot add his results to the automatically-generated data table below. However, I can link to his ySearch.org results page, which show his 37-marker values (which are not exactly the same 37 markers that FamilyTreeDNA tests). His haplogroup is not listed, but judging from his marker values, he is strongly predicted to be in haplogroup J (subclade unknown). His ancestor is reported to be from Messina, Sicily, Italy. It is definitely possible that he and project member #N32799 may be related, as both have roots in Italy and are in haplogroup J; expanded testing of #N32799's results may help clear up those questions.