Debbie Cooper wrote:
My father's birth papers list a Michael DiPietro as his biological father. We are trying to unravel the secrets behind his birth certificate. My brother did the paternal lineage from ancestry.com and we learned that he belongs to the E1b1b haplogroup. They were the early farmers that settled in parts of the Medeterrean area to include Southern Italy. However, we were not linked with any relatives. To see if I could gain more information I took the DNA test. It does show that my ethnicity is 25% Italy/Greece. I am thinking that maybe there is some validity to my Dad's birth certificate. If anyone knows anything about this haplogroup or where the DiPietro ancestors lived I would greatly appreciate the help. It is believed that my grandmother Cecelia Plouffe may have lived with a Joseph DiPietro in Boston, Ma. in 1931 - 1932. He had a relative named frank that may have lived in Malden, Ma. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Debbie, if you have evidence that your other three grandparents' ethnic background doesn't include Italy in any significant proportion, then the 25% Italy/Greece ethnicity returned by your result may indeed point to Italian ancestors as recent as your paternal grandfather. Your brother's paternal (Y-DNA) haplogroup provides information about that ancestral line's ancient origins, and you can find more information on the E1b1b haplogroup on FamilyTreeDNA or by Googling. There appears to be a group at
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/e3bfor the E-M35 Phylogeny Project, which includes that haplogroup, and your brother might want to join. There does not appear to be a DiPietro project group currently.
To learn more about your recent ancestry, however, you need to do the work of researching all the available historical documents that pertain to your family, starting with your most recent ancestors. For someone to help you, we need more information than what you have provided. For example, what is your father's name and where and when was he born? What are the birth papers you're referring to? What do you know about Cecelia? Where and when was she born? Did she immigrate to the U.S. and if so, when and from where? Do you have personal knowledge of her residential addresses at different dates and what kind of work she did? Whom did she marry and what do you know about them? I take it that Michael DiPietro was either not her lawful husband or you don't know about her marital status. Does your father's birth certificate indicate his parents' marital status? Have you searched for Cecelia's records? Do you have any other documents linking your father to Michael? What's the source of the information you have about Joseph DiPietro and his relative Frank?
Rather than answering these questions here, since this thread pertains to DNA Testing, I suggest that you begin a new thread in the Italian Genealogy forum with a subject like "Seeking information on Michael DiPietro from (^Massachusetts location)." This will draw the kind of help you need finding historical information.
With only the information you cited above, I did a quick search on Ancestry for a Cecelia Plouffe residing in the Boston area around 1930. I found a 1920 U.S. Census record for a Cecelia, age 20 and single, living ("inmate")at the Wrentham State School in Wrentham, Massachusetts. There are two DiPietro children, both girls, age 12 and 13, living at the school at that time. There is also a 1930 census showing a Cecelia Plouffe, 29, at a residence in Belmont, MA, working as a "helper." This may or may not be the same person or your grandmother. It takes more thorough research to prove the connections. If there is a residential address on your father's birth certificate, that, along with his birth date, will help.
Coincidentally, I have a friend whose name is Michele DiPietro, who is from Pescara, Italy, and lives currently in the state of Georgia. This does not mean that your Michael DiPietro is from Pescara. A search for the current distribution of the surname DiPietro in Italy shows that it is distributed widely, and I understand that this is based only on current land lines, not cell phones, which are in wider use:
http://www.cognomix.it/mappe-dei-cognom ... i/DIPIETRO. You need to begin with what you already know for certain and work backwards, which will include trying to narrow down which DiPietro in the Boston area is your grandfather based on historical documents.
Lesley