I recently had the pleasure to start reading a document containing papers which were presented at a conference which took place in Santiago de Compostela in 2002. The conference entitled "Xornadas xenética e historia no Noroeste Peninsular" was dedicated to Genetics and History in the north part of the Iberian Peninsula. The papers are written in Galician, Castilian and Portuguese. The whole document was kindly sent to me by Ricardo Costa de Oliveira. For those who are interested in the subject I am enclosing a summary of comments that caught my attention. It is purely a subjective selection. This part only includes half of the document. I will share with you the other part later. I welcome any comments. Please note that these are also my translations. Madeira and Galicia: a background Obviously you want to know what this conference has to do with Madeira. Glad you asked. We can use the term Galicia with its capital in Braga to identify most territories north of the Mondego River and in the west and northern part of Iberia. That is until the reorganization of the Roman provinces in Iberia. However, it is to the north of the Douro River that the region reaches into the 12th and 13th centuries. This is the beginning of Portugal. The old province of Minho is part of this territory. Madeira is colonized in and around 1430's, barely 2 and a half centuries hence. If we accept that many of the colonists came from the Northern part of Portugal, then Madeira Is inevitably intertwined with Galicia. This means that in my opinion, that many of the genetic, linguistic and historical inevitably, directly or indirectly link to Madeira. In my limited research of parish records, I have found evidence that while in Funchal with its large mercantile population arrivals came from all over; many arrivals in the 15th or 16th centuries were from the north part. In Caniço, Santa Cruz specifically we see young men arriving from the present day districts of Viana, Braga and Viseu. Viseu today is not considered north, but it was part of pre-Portugal Galicia. So, for those of you, who are thinking beyond Madeira for your ancestral lineages and genetic testing, Galicia and present day Minho may be your destination. Please comment on this. The papers: >From the preface by Gerado Pereira,Anxo Carracedo "Geneticists don't study genetics phenomena of a people that was, but of a people that is" "They don't study how genetically the Galician or Portuguese people are (what hypothetically they were) but what they became" "Is a people a starting or an arrival point?" >From Antonio Amorim "at the beginning of then 19th century there were more than 80,000 Galegos in Portugal" "there are no significant differences in mtDNa between Galicia and northern Portugal"p.22 mtDna paradox-those of North African lineage are more commonly found in Galicia and Northern Portugal p.24 male lines (Y) is the opposite- more in the south and less in Galicia- p.27 from Sandra Beleza "from time immemorial there was always a clear division between cultures that existed in the North and those that established south of Rio Douro (Ribeiro, 1966) p.32 -modern thinking indicates that the Moorish invasion did not displace many of the people in the northern part (Pallares,2003) p.32 0.26% variance between northern Portugal and Galicia- indicates a common origin Note that when referring to the North there is a need to differentiate the interior districts of Vila Real and Bragança from Braga and Viana do Castelo- the differences between these districts are significant- p36-37 The great conclusion of the study is that in Northwest the geographic barriers are more important that political lines in the y Chromosome data. Maria Brión and Paula Sanchez-Diz note that Galician males moved a lot. It seems that according to rural, legal and cultural tradition in Galicia, the older daughter inherited the family house and lands- p. 50 (I am wondering if that is the case in Minho?) José Fernandes Administrator Race Relations/Community and Cultural Services York Region District School Board Phone: 905 737 4353, Ext. 107 Phone: 416 969 7170, Ext 2409/107 jose.fernandes@yrdsb.edu.on.ca