On 19/06/2016 2:08 PM, Darrel Hockley via wrote: > Well maybe at some point some lost information will come to light on who was what. I do not know if DNA testing of any descendants of Nicholas Crispo would help or not in solving the issue - I am thinking of the "Family Finder" test that Family Tree DNA offers. > Darrel Hockley > > From: Peter Stewart via <gen-medieval@rootsweb.com> > To: gen-medieval@rootsweb.com > Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 8:04 PM > Subject: Re: Fw: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) > > On Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 5:37:41 AM UTC+10, Darrel Hockley via wrote: >> I originally sent the below to Dr. Williams' email address, but it >> "bounced back" to me, so now I have posted it to the List. >> Darrel Hockley >> >> >> ----- Forwarded Message ----- >> From: Darrel Hockley <ddh_regina@yahoo.ca> >> To: Dr. Kelsey Jackson Williams <kelsey@scotsgenealogist.com> >> Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 1:32 PM >> Subject: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) >> >> Hello Dr. Williams, >> I have been reading about Caterino Zeno, Patrician of Venice and >> Diplomat of the Venetian Republic and am thinking there may be a >> connexion to the House of Komnenos in his case. >> >> In the Wilki article on Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros and Patrician >> of Venice (1392 to 1450), it states he married in 1413 Eudokia >> (Valenza) Komnena. > This appears to be an error - according to Michel Kuršanskis we don't know if Valenza was the first wife of Niccolò, a Genoese lady who died shortly after 1418, or his second wife who may have been a Komnene from Trebizond given an Italian name, perhaps a daughter of Alexis IV or possibly of Manuel III (see 'Une alliance problématique au XVe siècle: le mariage de Valenza Comnena, fille d’un empereur de Trébizonde, à Niccolò Crispo, seigneur de Santorin', in *Archeion Pontou* 30 (1970–1971) 94-106). > > Peter Stewart > > I'm puzzled as to how you suppose DNA testing might help - for starters, whose DNA would be available to test, and whose to compare the results? Thierry Ganchou has suggested that Valenza was the daughter of Jacopo Gattilusio, whom Niccolò Crispo called his father-in-law. If she was instead Niccolò's second wife, presumed to have been daughter of a Megas Komnenos of Trebizond, then her father was more probably Alexios IV than Manuel III. But if the latter, and she was baptised Eudokia, then her mother was far more likely to have been Manuel's second wife Anna than his first who had herself taken the name Eudokia. Chronologically this is also more plausible, since Gulkhan/Eudokia died in 1395 whereas Niccolò Crispo evidently married for the second time after the death of a Genoese wife who was living in 1418. In any event, none of these people has modern descendants in direct male or female lines who could provide useful Y- or Mt-DNA, even if you could find 15th-century remains to extract comparison samples. How else would you propose to go about it? Peter Stewart

On 19/06/2016 4:11 PM, Peter Stewart via wrote: > > Thierry Ganchou has suggested that Valenza was the daughter of Jacopo > Gattilusio, whom Niccolò Crispo called his father-in-law. I should have written that Guillaume Saint-Guillain and Thierry Ganchou (as a result of their discussions) suggested this relationship. Peter Stewart

On 19/06/2016 4:11 PM, Peter Stewart via wrote: > Thierry Ganchou has suggested that Valenza was the daughter of Jacopo > Gattilusio, whom Niccolò Crispo called his father-in-law. If she was > instead Niccolò's second wife, presumed to have been daughter of a Megas > Komnenos of Trebizond, then her father was more probably Alexios IV than > Manuel III. But if the latter, and she was baptised Eudokia, then her > mother was far more likely to have been Manuel's second wife Anna than > his first who had herself taken the name Eudokia. Chronologically this > is also more plausible, since Gulkhan/Eudokia died in 1395 whereas > Niccolò Crispo evidently married for the second time after the death of > a Genoese wife who was living in 1418. Apologies, this is misleading, making it seem definite that Niccolò Crispo was married twice: for all we know he had only one wife, named Valenza, living in 1418, who was from a Genoese family. Michel Kuršanskis has speculated that she may have come from Trebbia on the Ligurian coast, that Ramusio writing a century later mistook this as an abbreviation for Trebizond, and that he based his story of the actual Trapezuntine princess Theodora calling Caterino Zeno her "nephew" on this mistake. Peter Stewart