I have learned through DNA analysis that my remote ancestors came to Italy from the Near East. I am puzzled about how this might have come about. My less-remote ancestors, going back two hundred and fifty years, lived in Frosinone Province, in central Italy, south and east of Rome. Can anyone tell me how Near Easterners might have come to settle in Italy proper and not Sicily, which was multi-ethnic and multi-cultural? Mille grazie in anticipo, Alan Tullio

Unfortunately, DNA tests cannot tell how long ago your ancestors might have arrived in Italy from the Near East. There has been interaction between Italy and the eastern Mediterranean since ancient times. Cities like Naples (Neapolis), Taranto (Tarentum), and especially Rome would have had sizable numbers of merchants who settled there from all over the Mediterranean. Others would have been brought there as slaves as a result of the Roman military conquests in the eastern Mediterranean. In medieval times, there would have been eastern settlers coming to southern Italy during a new phase of colonization under the Byzantines. A number of Saracens also settled on the southern Italian mainland during the era of the Kingdom of Sicily. Much of the Frosinone Province was part of that Kingdom for centuries. So, while the southern Italian mainland might not have had such a mixture of different ethnic groups, there were many people who settled there from throughout the Mediterranean and beyond.