Italian Red-Heads

[BrownEyedGirl]

I thought this article might be of interest to fellow red-heads.

My great grandmother, who was from Campania, must have defied her Mediterranean genes. She was extremely pale with naturally auburn hair and hazel eyes.

https://jacksitaly.wordpress.com/2013/1 ... come-from/

[iginio]

My mother was from Piedmont. She had red hair and green eyes. My grandfather had red hair and blue eyes. Red heads all over Italy.

[BrownEyedGirl]

Yes, there certainly are red-heads all over Italy.

[milandro]

...as being witnessed by the surname Rossi, Rosso and Russo (the southern variant). Although in Spanish ( many Italians had Iberian origins) Rubio means Blond and but could easily have been translated as Rosso, Rossi or Russo.

The Red hair gene incidence (although the definition of what is “ red” might vary) in Italian population is rather significant and there was even a map of the “ red hair distribution” in the kingdom of Italy.

[brogie62]

Not sure it is that significant a part of the Italian population. 0.6% in Italy vs 10% in Ireland or 6% in Scotland.

[DanceDiva234]

I remember doing research on this way back. Italy has been conquered and settled time and time again. The Normans, who are well known for their red hair, settled in many areas of Italy we would never think of. My family still shows their red hair to this day.

[jennabet]

Personally for me, the conquered and conquered explanation is not good enough or even necessary, in many cases. All four of my grand-parents were born and raised in Abruzzo and in the same province of Abruzzo and the same town in Abruzzo. We all have from light to medium hair color with blue or green eyes and my maternal grand-father and some cousins also on the maternal side had red hair. I recently received the results of a DNA test. My ancestry breakdown is as follows:

European -- 98.6%
Southern European -- 97.4%
Italian -- a whopping 85.4%
Balkan -- 5.2%
Iberian -- 1.3%
Sardinian -- 0.6%
Broadly So. European -- 4.9%

I live in Abruzzo and have been to many towns where ancient gates and fortified walls to keep out invaders still stand. So in fact from the percentages displayed in my test of a person with four Abruzzese grand-parents, it looks like the Abruzzese must have done a good job in repelling invaders. It's more likely that our light eyes, hair and even red hair naturally occurs in this population because Italians in this part of Italy are Europeans who had friendly relations with other nearby Europeans and it's a misnomer to assume that most Italians had dark hair and eyes.

[mjclayton1]

My partner's (paternal) Italian grandparents come from Lucca, so Central (approaching Northern) Italy. She's a brunette, but her hair has a reddish hue to it (it's subtle, yet distinctive... if that makes any sense). So do her two daughters. I'm told her (aforementioned) grandmother had similar hair color. It's interesting to note that her paternal grandfather also had cousins that had similar hair, so this might have been a local "lucchesi" phenomenon. Again, this is nowhere near "red-red" hair, but sort of a reddish hue (mostly when in the sun) to i suoi capelli castani...

[leichesa]

My family is from Orsara di Puglia, Foggia, Apulia. One of the surnames is Saurino, which means "chestnut haired". We have alll colors from dark auburn to carrot red. The last 3 Italians (from Italy) I have met have been redheads. We are not so rare as people think. People always expect black hair, brown eyes and olive complexion. For reasons unknown to me, some Italians believe that Italians with red hair have Jewish ancestry. Nice to know there are more of us out there!