I-FGC22045, a Balkan Y haplogroup of Scandinavian origin

[Bogdan Munteanu]

My father, Constantin Munteanu, has the I-PH3895 haplogroup, discovered by a Big Y test at FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA). It is a branch of I-FGC22061, an Y haplogroup with many sub-branches encountered mainly in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia, apparently associated with a medieval Vlach tribe named Drobnjak. I-FGC22061 is itself a branch of I-FGC22045.

The parent branch of the Balkan I-FGC22045 is the haplogroup named I-FGC22048 by FTDNA and I-FGC22046 by YFull.

An ancient sub-branch of I-FGC22048 / I-FGC22046 was discovered in a boy (sample VK 379) who lived between 700 - 800 CE during the Viking Age in Böda, Öland, Sweden.

The other contemporary sub-branch of I-FGC22048 outside I-FGC22045 is I-FT216475, encountered today in Southern Sweden in Kumla, Västmanland and Kvällinge, Gladhammar (a little south of Västervik).

Balkan branch
I-M253 > I-P109 > I-S14887 > I-Y11203 > I-FGC22048 (I-FGC22046) > I-FGC22045 > I-FGC22061 > I-PH3895

Swedish branch
I-M253 > I-P109 > I-S14887 > I-Y11203 > I-FGC22048 (I-FGC22046) > I-FT216475 > I-Y90931

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-FGC22048/classic
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-FGC22048/ancient
https://www.yfull.com/tree/I-FGC22046/

According to FamilyTreeDNA, the common ancestor of the Balkan and Swedish branches lived in Scandinavia around 500 BCE, so around 2500 years ago.

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-PH3895/compare/I-FT216475

Who was the man of Scandinavian origin who brought the I-FGC22045 haplogroup to the Balkans is the first part of the genealogical enigma to be solved. There are multiple theories regarding the arrival of the haplogroup in the Balkans, but the most plausible is that the ancestor of the men with the I-FGC22045 haplogroup was of Norman origin. It is known that the Normans were of Scandinavian origin on their paternal side.

My research, based on medieval documents kept in the Dubrovnik archive, points to a Norman man named Gervase who was the ruler of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia) between 1186-1190, when the city-state was controlled by the Norman Kingdom of Southern Italy and Sicily. This man very probably belonged to the Montfort family and was actually Gervase of Tilbury, an Englishman of Norman origin.

I presented this theory in detail in my messages posted on the Molgen forum at the address below:

https://forum.molgen.org/index.php/topic,14941.0.html

The second part of the genealogical enigma is to find the Scandinavian ancestors of the man who brought the I-FGC22045 haplogroup to the Balkans. The only method that I can use is to investigate my father's autosomal matches (from Ancestry, MyHeritage and FTDNA) who according to their trees have mainly Scandinavian ancestors and according to their ethnicity estimate have mainly Scandinavian DNA. Of course, they must not have ancestors or DNA from Eastern Europe or the Balkans and as little as possible German ancestry or DNA (the Germans were present in the Balkans as colonists from medieval times).

This seems pretty simple. I should compare the trees of the DNA matches and discover the distant shared ancestors who probably are also the ancestors of my father. The problem is that in Scandinavia until the 19th century the surnames were actually patronymics (father's name + son/daughter), which changed with each generation. So, the method of finding the common ancestors of the autosomal matches based only on surnames doesn't work.

I needed to try another method. I created a custom map with the birthplaces of the persons from the trees of the autosomal matches. The goal is to see if there are ancestors of different matches who were born in the same village or town/city. At this time I added only the ancestors of 15 matches, but there are at least 50 more matches with trees (unfortunately there are also interesting matches without trees). Currently, there are only three birthplaces which are common for ancestors of two different matches (Skellefteå, Ryssby and Copenhagen). You can see the map at the address below:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=18MkC0nQcHpNyFrXRG_hYSSOOlQDCaWQ&usp=sharing (map that can be zoomed)

A more precise and easy method (no research needed) would be to find a Scandinavian man with an Y haplogroup more closely related to I-FGC22045 than I-FT216475. Since last year, FTDNA has offered for free an intermediate Y haplogroup to all the men who bought the Family Finder (autosomal DNA) test. Because of this, my father now has 30 Scandinavian matches (Y-12, Y-25 and Y-67)  who have the I-S14887 intermediate haplogroup (the grandparent branch of I-FGC22045). But this haplogroup is intermediate, that is halfway to their precise haplogroup, which can only be discovered by a Big Y test. Their precise haplogroup could be very closely related to I-FGC22045 or distantly related, because the I-S14887 haplogroup has many sub-branches, and I-FGC22045 is only one of them. I could contact these matches and try to convince them to take the Big Y test, which is fairly expensive. I did this in March with 25 Y-DNA matches of British origin and convinced 5 of them to take the test. However, only 2 have received their Big Y results after 2 months, the other 3 have not received the results after more than 4 months of waiting. So, I really cannot recommend taking a Big Y test right now, except if you are willing to wait 4 months or more for the results. You can see below a map with my father's Y-DNA matches who could have a closely related Y haplogroup, including the Scandinavian ones (the matches with the I-S14887 haplogroup have red markers) :

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1tAy-Hp70_oDeBaA0jJKE1W2flO8iS38&usp=sharing (map that can be zoomed)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l8iFoUbEVHJ70BPXpXFBE1ppvAVQmJnk/view?usp=sharing (map legend)

[Bogdan Munteanu]

The Molgen forum has been down for the last few days. I saved the pages of the forum thread about the I-FGC22045 haplogroup and made an archive which is stored on my Google Drive and can be freely downloaded. The saved files are in MHTML format and can be opened with any internet browser. All the files uploaded to Google Drive are scanned by Google, so the archive and its content are safe to open.

I-FGC22045 - a Balkan Y haplogroup of Scandinavian origin (ZIP archive)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1stpAwF3xiRAzZXzFBGGSP3OlstMm1nd-/view?usp=sharing

[Bogdan Munteanu]

I try to find the origin of the I-FGC22045 haplogroup using autosomal DNA, so I wanted to see if my father has autosomal matches who have the I-S14887 haplogroup. I searched for "I-S14887" in the list of autosomal (Family Finder) matches from FTDNA and found three matches in this situation. These are men who have bought the Family Finder test and have received I-S14887 as an intermediate haplogroup. Their precise Y haplogroups remain to be determined, but it could be one of the branches of I-FGC22045. See the screenshot below, hosted on my Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gWtqi5gDog0u9uqxn5x6HhJuQwkFJfDy/view?usp=sharing

Two of the matches are from Sweden and I speak about them below. One match is from the Balkans and I will speak about him on the Molgen forum thread, when the forum will be online again.

1) Mats N. (13 cM shared DNA) has only taken the Family Finder (autosomal) test. He doesn't offer any information about himself or his ancestors. Unfortunately, his ethnicity estimate is private. My father has 2 shared matches with Mats N., an Albanian and a Rumanian, so it's possible that Mats is of Balkan origin on his paternal side, which would explain him being an autosomal match. I sent a message to Mats' e-mail address, but received no response.

2) G. Berqkvist (8 cM shared DNA) has only taken the Family Finder test. He doesn't offer any information about himself or his ancestors. My father has 3 shared matches with G. Berqvist, one being a Swede with possible Balkan ancestry and two being Finns without Balkan ancestry. I contacted Berqvist at the beginning of May and he responded. He doesn't know his complete paternal ethnicity, because he doesn't know who his great-grandfather was. All that he has is a photo and two letters sent around 1890 from Michigan, USA by a man with a very common Swedish name. This man is his great-grandfather, but despite extensive research he could not find him in the US or Swedish censuses of that time. I convinced G. Berqvist to take the Big Y test, which can help him find his relatives on the paternal line. He will contact me when he will receive his Big Y results.

Regarding the ZIP archive with the messages posted on the Molgen forum, it must be said that clicking on the link from my previous message displays a page with the list of the files from the archive. Clicking on the files does nothing, because they cannot be downloaded individually. One must click on the "Download" icon (with a downward arrow) from the right hand corner of the screen in order to download the full archive (1 MB) and then open the files directly from the archive or after unzipping the archive. See the screenshot below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aNygewCv9FeI7Hbn036VSW5HivrBvafG/view?usp=sharing

[Bogdan Munteanu]

This is a two part message.

PART 1

More than a month ago, on 26 June, I presented on the Molgen genealogy forum an update about the men convinced by me to take the Big Y test and who ordered it between 13-24 March. All of them had previously taken an Y-STR test, so their DNA samples were already available at the FTDNA laboratory. Only 2 of them (Chase, Barnard) received their results after approximately 2 months, the other 3 (Sherwood, Rodd, Oborne) have not received them after more than 4 months of waiting. I contacted them on 3 July to find out what happened.

1) R. Sherwood told me that a few days before he received the following e-mail from FTDNA, announcing a quality control failure:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[...]
We are contacting you regarding the Big Y-700 upgrade for kit ****. [...]
I'm sorry your Big Y-700 results are delayed. The Big Y-700 test typically takes 10-12 weeks to process on average.
Unfortunately, your sample experienced a quality control failure at the end of its most recent run and we are starting a rerun immediately at the highest priority.
I understand you are eager for the results of your testing, and we do not like to postpone tests for our customers. However, there are instances when samples can require additional testing. Our lab works to reduce the situations where this would be necessary whenever possible.
While it is rare that this next rerun would also fail to pass quality control and produce results, it does happen from time to time. Please ensure that your mailing address is current by editing the Contact Information under your Account Settings. We will contact you if a new collection is required at such time.
At this time, no further action or response is required. If this rerun passes quality control, you can expect your results within the next 6-8 weeks on average. It is possible results may come back sooner than this timeframe, as your sample is being processed at the highest priority and the lab is working to reduce delays.
We will notify you once the results are available or if anything else is needed on your end.[...]

Regards,
L. R.
Quality Assurance
FamilyTreeDNA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are other men in the same situation. I spoke previously about users who posted messages in June on the FTDNA forum with the same problem. I now found the messages that I believed had disappeared.

https://forums.familytreedna.com/forum/paternal-lineages-y-dna/big-y-and-snp-discovery/324400-latest-y-700-batches?p=336077#post336077
https://forums.familytreedna.com/forum/paternal-lineages-y-dna/big-y-and-snp-discovery/324400-latest-y-700-batches?p=336113#post336113

R. Sherwood finally received his results 5 weeks after receiving the e-mail from FTDNA. He ordered the Big Y test on 17 March, so he waited almost 4.5 months for the results (haplogroup I-Y6088).

Again, this is not uncommon, there is a user who wrote in March on the FTDNA forum that he received the Big Y results after 4 months and 4 days.

https://forums.familytreedna.com/forum/paternal-lineages-y-dna/big-y-and-snp-discovery/324400-latest-y-700-batches?p=335642#post335642

2) C. Rodd told me that a few weeks prior he received an e-mail from FTDNA telling him they don't have enough material to sample and they were sending another kit. The kit was received at the end of June and the new sample was sent back very quickly. The test was ordered on 17 March and the FTDNA e-mail came at the beginning of June, after 2.5 months. It's not clear why FTDNA took so long to inform a paying customer about the fact that the test could not be done with the current DNA sample. C. Rodd eventually got his results (haplogroup I-A5574) on 12 August, after almost 5 months of waiting.

3) J. Oborne told me that he didn't receive any e-mail from FTDNA. I advised him to contact FTDNA, because it is possible that their e-mail was automatically sent to the spam folder, and this is why he didn't see it. He ordered the Big Y test on 19 March, and you can see in the screenshot below that he has the Big Y-700 label, so FTDNA acknowledged the order.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8Q5WP5lrFHc-dH2SxvjD7lPLg7p24Yf/view?usp=sharing

However, it seems that FTDNA is only partially to blame in this case. Oborne (from Canada) told me that he paid with a check in USD from his Canadian bank account. But on the page with payment options from FTDNA's site it is said that FTDNA accepts checks or money orders only from US customers. International (non-US) customers who don't want to use debit/credit cards or PayPal can pay only via bank transfer (wire transfer). After contacting FTDNA, Oborne told me that their accounting department said they couldn’t cash the USD check because it came from Canada. There seems to be a problem when sending a USD check from a bank in Canada to a bank in the US. More details in the article below:

https://community.dynamics.com/blogs/post/?postid=44b6ad23-0c55-4cc4-b83f-0ba30846358b

So the check sent by J. Oborne was not cashed by FTDNA, and the Big Y test was not done. This is another example of the situation about which I spoke previously, men with the Big Y label, but with a generic haplogroup, I-M253 in this case. That means the test was ordered, but it is stuck, frozen, for a reason outside the testing process. In this case J.Oborne paid with a check, while being an international customer, a payment option that FTDNA does not support anymore (Oborne paid like this for his Y-STR test many years ago). FTDNA's fault is the lack of communication, not telling Oborne immediately that his payment was not accepted. Four and a half months were lost waiting for a result that could not arrive.

From my little sample of men who ordered the Big Y test at the end of March, two have received their results on time and two were announced that the tests have failed or could not be done. What is concerning is the failure rate of the tests, 2 of 4, and that means 50%. FTDNA clearly has a problem when it comes to the Big Y tests. A failure rate so high is not normal.

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 2

The Molgen forum, a Russian genetic genealogy forum, which hosted my research about the I-FGC22045 haplogroup, continues to be down for unknown reasons. I have no complaints about the forum and how I was treated there, but the fact that the forum went down without an explanation is concerning.

This is my second negative experience with a forum. I actually started to publish my research on the Serbian genealogy forum Poreklo, because there was already a thread started about the I-FGC22061 haplogroup (a major branch of I-FGC22045), and the majority of the men with this haplogroup are Serbs. But after two years of posting, I was led to understand that I was not welcome to post there anymore, so I left. The messages posted by me on the Poreklo forum can be read from the archive linked below, which contains the pages of the forum with my messages, including the messages which were deleted by the forum admins. The archive is hosted by Google Drive, which scans all the uploaded files, so the archive and its files are safe to open. Click on the download icon in the upper-right corner of the screen in order to download the 500 KB ZIP archive and then open the files directly from the archive or after unzipping it. My messages (posts) on the Poreklo forum were initially in both French and English and later only in English.

Messages posted by me on the Drobnjak-Novljan (I-FGC22061) thread of the Poreklo forum
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oLtcJ67IN7oml01-9Tk2i6L1hs_wp_7W/view?usp=sharing

I tried to find why the Molgen forum was down, so I posted a message on the Molgen Facebook group, using my sister's FB account, because I don't have one.

My first message was posted on 2 August 2024.

=============
Since the Molgen forum is down and has been like this for almost a week, it seems that the problem is more serious than a verification problem with the site. I don't know why the forum administrators do not say here when the forum will be back online. The forum has very few visitors, while being the best Russian genetic genealogy forum. Keeping it offline for a long time will make it lose a part of its already small audience.

Bogdan Munteanu
=============

This is the response that I received a day later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only problem is verification. The owner of the [Molgen] site is a very busy person, you don't know him. He can't find time to verify or transfer rights to another person.

N.Z.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To which I responded:

=============
Thanks for the response. I maintain my opinion that there is more to this than the verification of the site, maybe an internal dispute about the site's ownership.
I don't know the owner and I don't know how busy he is. I also don't know what is this "site verification", that seems to be so time consuming. But I am sure that the owner has a reputation and wants to maintain it. And just like people, sites also have a reputation. The sites that go down for extended periods of time lose their reputation, because they appear as unreliable.

A forum is a site created by its users, who spend time posting messages. A forum without users is dead. The users will not lose their time in order to contribute to a forum with a low reputation. If the users perceive a forum as unreliable, because it is down frequently or for extended periods of time, they will leave and post their messages elsewhere.
The search engines are also very sensitive to a site's reputation, and they downgrade the rank of the sites that go down for many days. I can tell you from my experience that the Molgen forum is not favored by Google, probably because it's a Russian forum. It took Google almost 1 YEAR to index the thread created by me in August 2023 on the Molgen forum ("Haplogroup I-FGC22045, a Balkan branch of I-P109"). When searching for "I-FGC22045", Google did not display the Molgen thread as a result until July 2024. By comparison, when I created on 25 July 2024 a similar thread on the Scandinavian genealogy forum Rotter, it took Google only 1 DAY to index the thread. And it's not about my thread, but about the threads of all the users. Google will be more than happy to not show results from the Molgen forum, if the forum is down for a long time.

And finally, there is also the reputation of the country and its people. The owner of the forum wants Russia and the Russians to be seen as unreliable? I hope not.

Bogdan Munteanu
=============

I didn't receive another response.

I can continue to post my research here if I decide to continue with it. If the admins of the Rötter site have a problem with posting my research here, they can tell me, and I will go somewhere else, no questions asked. I understand that this is a Scandinavian genealogy forum and at this time my research concerns mainly the presence of the I-FGC22045 haplogroup in the Balkans and the connection with England, which are easier to research than the Scandinavian origin of the haplogroup. The Scandinavian origin is very important and I hope to continue to research it, maybe with the help of those Scandinavian men with the I-S14887 haplogroup who will take the Big Y test in order to find their precise haplogroup, which can be closely related to I-FGC22045.

[Bogdan Munteanu]

This is a four part message.

PART 1

I will provide an overview of the haplogroup situation for those who are interested only in the genetic genealogy part of the research and maybe want to pursue a similar approach, but don't know how to research the male line using Y-DNA testing.

The I-FGC22045 haplogroup is encountered today in the Balkans, mainly in some countries of former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, North Macedonia), in Albania and Rumania. It has a sibling branch named I-FT216475, encountered today in Southern Sweden. Both I-FGC22045 and I-FT216475 were derived from the Scandinavian haplogroup I-FGC22048. This latter haplogroup is a sub-branch of I-S14887, itself encountered today in Scandinavia, Germany, England and the USA. The I-S14887 haplogroup is old, and those that have it at this time received it for free after FTDNA analyzed their Family Finder test, so they actually have a newer haplogroup, to be determined if they buy the Big Y test (this is why FTDNA provides the intermediate haplogroup).

I-M253 > I-P109 > I-S14887 > I-Y11203 > I-FGC22048 (I-FGC22046) > I-FGC22045 > I-FGC22061 > I-PH3895

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-FGC22045/story

See the screenshot below of the FTDNA haplotree with my explanations (all the screenshots hosted on Google Drive can be zoomed in and out when viewed online by clicking on the + or - buttons at the bottom of the page). Haplotree means tree of haplogroups.

Haplotree of I-S14887 and its branches on FTDNA:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tjOqvGRK5zd5K_BzhFV0xggtmanvXwHr/view?usp=sharing

Haplotree of I-S14887 and its branches on YFull (scroll down the page to see I-FGC22046 / I-FGC22048 and its sub-branches) :

https://www.yfull.com/tree/I-S14887/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiJbPTSJo2jOCTzPGqpApLUWpY-vr-7A/view?usp=sharing (screenshot with my explanations)

Differences between FTDNA's haplotree and YFull's haplotree:

1) On FTDNA, the Ancient Scandinavian branch is named I-FGC22048, whereas on YFull it is named I-FGC22046.

2) On FTDNA you can collapse and expand the sub-branches by clicking on the "v" or ">" signs next to the haplogroups, whereas on YFull you can not. This is useful when taking screenshots, and you can see that I collapsed all the sub-branches in order to have in the same screenshot I-S14887 and I-FGC22048. The screenshot from YFull doesn't show I-S14887 and it shows only some of the branches of I-FGC22046.

3) On YFull there is an Albanian with the I-FGC22045* haplogroup, which doesn't appear on FTDNA. This Albanian is A. D. Gjoka, who is an Y-12 match of my father on FTDNA, where he has the I-S14887 haplogroup (from the FF test). On YFull he has a more precise haplogroup, because he has taken a WGS (Whole Genome Sequencing) test at Dante Labs and uploaded his results to YFull.

4) On FTDNA there are 2 men with the I-FGC22045 haplogroup, an Ukrainian and a North Macedonian. The Ukrainian is O. Siryi, who is a Y-12 match of my father, and is also present on YFull, where he has the I-FGC22052* haplogroup. The North Macedonian named Nuzda is an Y-25 match of my father.

5) It must be said that Gjoka, Siryi or Nuzda do not actually have the I-FGC22045 haplogroup, which is an old haplogroup, but newer haplogroups that will be determined when other men will take a Big Y or similar test and will have the same mutations on the Y chromosome as Gjoka, Siryi or Nuzda. Nuzda in fact has not taken the Big Y test, but an Y-37 test and then probably bought two SNP packs in order to get that haplogroup. It is very possible that Siryi has the distant paternal ancestor from the Balkans, because his real name is Chumak and this surname literally means "[medieval] salt trader". As I discussed on the Poreklo and Molgen forums, the I-FGC22045 haplogroup seems to be linked to the salt production and trade in the Middle Ages in the Balkans, England and very probably also in Scandinavia (where the method of extracting salt from seawater by boiling it using fire fueled by wood was invented).

6) On YFull the contemporary Swedish branch is I-FGC22046*, practically the same as the Ancient Scandinavian branch. This is because only A. Bergqvist has uploaded his Big Y results to YFull, whereas R. Johansson and A. Welander are not present on YFull. If one of them was present, YFull would have created a new branch under I-FGC22046, named after one of the Y chromosome mutations shared with A. Bergqvist.

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 2

I will shortly discuss my father's Y-STR and Big Y matches.


Y-111 MATCHES
==============
There is only 1 Y-111 match, M. Djurdjic from Montenegro, with a genetic distance (GD) of 9 steps. This means that my father and him have a common ancestor who lived 3-400 years ago. See screenshot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Y74DG_mFN1eKx3bBJMERblPf1qI2egP/view?usp=sharing


Y-67 MATCHES
=============
There are 58 Y-67 matches.
8 matches who have taken the Big Y test have a closely related haplogroup (branch of I-FGC22061), the rest have distantly related haplogroups. See the screenshots below with the closely related matches.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ptriS4ue8XislVGdjqm8O7VdCKKknMwR/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eBGf08hniFuzygl08rHRn4rONyJo_0ZT/view?usp=sharing

There are a few interesting Y-67 matches who have not taken the Big Y test and could have a closely related haplogroup to I-FGC22045.

1) A.T. Pierce (I-M253) : Two members of the Pierce-Southern U.S project have the I-S14887 haplogroup, so A.T. Pierce could also have a branch of that haplogroup. However he has not taken the Family Finder test, so he will not receive an intermediate haplogroup to see if it is I-S14887.

2) L. G. Gidholm (I-M253) : He's a Swede who is a Y-12, Y-25 and Y-67 match. He has taken the Family Finder test, so he should receive an intermediate haplogroup. However, since he has not received it until now, it is hard to believe that he will ever receive it. So, only if he orders the Big Y test we could see if his precise haplogroup is closely related to I-FGC22045. See screenshot below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11LxKh7KuLDcXKYqFm5sw_POxVT_01Y9Z/view?usp=sharingî

3) T.H. Lawrence : He's an American who has the I-S14887 haplogroup, received because he has taken the Family Finder test. He doesn't mention his earlier paternal ancestor or his country of origin. See screenshot below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vxBjqjo_jgSSmc94u-rIekB402QOvH9j/view?usp=sharing


Y-37 MATCHES
=============
There are 16 Y-37 matches.
Only 1 match, B. Seat from Croatia, has the I-S14887 haplogroup, received because he has taken the Family Finder test. His precise Y haplogroup is very probably a branch of I-FGC22061.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aQeWS8SeB7vKniIo3Oy5Qw7m2eBKihwU/view?usp=sharing

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 3

Y-25 MATCHES
=============
There are 1099 Y-25 matches.
10 matches have a haplogroup that is a sub-branch of I-FGC22045. See the screenshots below with these closely related matches.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PDdyCIabOXWVzB_DMbMR9rn5YthbO0xm/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14pXB9K03gcBauq0IalCu_aQT81PcA60a/view?usp=sharing

31 matches have the I-S14887 haplogroup, received because they have taken the FF test. 19 of them are from Scandinavia. Their haplogroups could be closely related to I-FGC22045 or distantly related. See the screenshots.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SAidLQRZG84KBuskqhwj8Rf6ckrAZIa1/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tz1_CxgwD-F5OH-BZere96aWITYGF2pG/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zMBURUfL9aqdMfOAfHAZWd-MxVkEBDnK/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dj7QRZlZHbbKiam14ZevIQbCZTCPhnHg/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b_H1w6Eg67tCeGrGxPHTXAZEn2GCBln7/view?usp=sharing


Y-12 MATCHES
=============
There are 4005 Y-12 matches.
12 matches have a haplogroup that is a sub-branch of I-FGC2245. See the screenshots below with these closely related matches.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mcrWW-l6crI0pCwNzfEAsyx8MlHLLXN1/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13g0Nf3NnQ23uVtr5P1D4npG4Y6ECY7Q1/view?usp=sharing

2 matches from Sweden (R. Johansson and A. Bergqvist) have a haplogroup that is a sub-branch of I-FT216475, the Scandinavian sibling branch of the Balkan I-FGC22045. See the screenshots below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/147Vx7C_eAehNLKvDLh0chFocOyM48I8B/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U8sWwCzyTcM1fSMxFBJMl4SaxamwzkfY/view?usp=sharing

There are two other Swedes who have a haplogroup that is a sub-branch of I-FT216475, but are not Y-STR matches of my father:
- A. Welander has the same precise Y haplogroup as A. Bergqvist.
- R.Nilsson has the I-M253 haplogroup, but is a Y-67 match (5 steps) for R. Johansson, so his haplogroup is either I-FT216475 or its sub-branch I-Y90931.

34 Y-12 matches have the I-S14887 haplogroup, received because they have taken the FF test. 21 of them are from Scandinavia. See the screenshots.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16IeJ-inonf7qinhdiB8Un1zpzCaU4DwV/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c9NP-IwVhl_bUHDxYzxWNG7wDoyQMErH/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ld9aNX7GHWk9yClLU1StSsWXJWj-7ZGq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19TlCYRg5KFDFk6E9co7STcYTv3g2H1nB/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QmjJPqc8yrEvWQFWC59pPjDDtUy2QsEW/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j_0u1KueO35EFCJkCoZjWdTh2If6UqkD/view?usp=sharing


BIG Y MATCHES
==============
There are 20 Big Y matches, all from the Balkans. See the screenshots below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YErCC_Nk0rx3HEOenkJWH3kJljje32tX/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSCbAYTynAp28s-PcnWZBVfSl1XmSC-Y/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kzombdUhmHvVtAdyjJijYlt-PlC6wW7R/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ZGKRTJlLvvyIkbfUQhYX_iE12CmbLlZ/view?usp=sharing

CONCLUSION
=============

So, what must be done now from a genetic genealogy point of view in order to advance the research on the origin of the I-FGC22045 haplogroup? The answer is simple, convince as many as possible of the men with the intermediate I-S14887 haplogroup, to take the Big Y test in order to receive a precise haplogroup. It is possible that at least one of these men, probably one with a Scandinavian or English ancestor, has an Y haplogroup which is very closely related to I-FGC22045.

According to FTDNA and YFull, the Scandinavian I-FGC22048 (I-FGC22046) appeared in 700-800 BCE, and its Balkan branch I-FGC22045 in 300-500 BCE. In contrast, I-FGC22061, the South-Slavic branch of I-FGC22045 appeared in 700 CE. So, more than 1000 years have passed before I-FGC22061 branched off of I-FGC22045. This is a long time, which proves that between I-FGC22045 and I-FGC22061 there is at least one other branch, to be discovered.

I-M253 > I-P109 > I-S14887 > I-Y11203 > I-FGC22048 (I-FGC22046) > I-FGC22045 > undiscovered branch > I-FGC22061 > I-PH3895

This undiscovered branch could be found in Scandinavia or quite possibly in France, Italy or England, where the Normans have settled. Does one of my father's Y-STR matches have the Y haplogroup belonging to this currently undiscovered branch? Only a Big Y test could prove this assumption. But from what I've seen, none of the men who received the intermediate I-S14887 haplogroup a few months ago has ordered the Big Y test.

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 4

At the end of March, I contacted C.F. Marsh, an Y-12 and Y-25 match of my father, trying to convince him to take the Big Y test. He did not respond to my e-mail. However, now I see that he has ordered the Big Y test, so maybe in the end my message convinced him.

This is the e-mail sent by me. I attached a screenshot that showed Marsh as my fathers' Y-25 match and a screenshot with the YFull tree of the I-FGC22046 haplogroup. I invited him to read my research posted on the Molgen forum, which was online at that time.

===============
Subject: Your Y-DNA haplogroup and test at FamilyTreeDNA

Hello,

You are an Y-25 and Y-12 (25 and 12 Markers) match on FamilyTreeDNA with my father, Constantin Munteanu (see the attached screenshot). I am curious if you plan to upgrade your Y-DNA test to Big Y-700 in order to have a more precise haplogroup, not the generic I-M253, which doesn't tell much about the paternal genealogy, other than the fact that you are of Germanic descent on your paternal line.

Why am I asking you this? Because you can help me in my research to find the English ancestor of my father.

My father has taken the Big Y-700 test and his haplogroup is I-PH3895 (I-M253>I-P109>I-FGC22046>I-FGC22045>I-FGC22061>I-PH3895). The I-P109 branch of I-M253 is Scandinavian in origin, and I-FGC22045 is the most widespread branch of I-P109 in the Balkans (encountered mostly in the countries of former Yugoslavia and in Albania). A Scandinavian Y haplogroup in the Balkans is unusual, but it can be explained by multiple theories, one of them being that it was brought by the Normans, who fought with the Byzantines in the Balkans. The Normans were of Scandinavian origin on their paternal line.

My theory is that the I-FGC22045 haplogroup was brought to the Balkans by Gervase of Tilbury, himself an Englishman of Norman origin, who lived around the year 1200. He was a lawyer specialized in Canon law (law regarding the activities of the Catholic church) and he worked between 1183-1190 for William II, the Norman king of Sicily and southern Italy. The same William II had appointed a man named Gervase as the ruler (count) of the city-state of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik in Croatia) between 1186-1190. In my opinion, supported by my research, Gervase the Norman count of Ragusa was Gervase of Tilbury.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gervase_of_Tilbury

Gervase the Norman count had with him his brothers and sons, this is proven by the documents from the Dubrovnik archive. One of his sons, named Martinussio, became the founder of a noble family in Ragusa [Dubrovnik] that lasted under this name for a few hundred years. The Ragusans were merchants and established trade colonies across the Balkans. Many Ragusan men from these colonies married local women. This is how the Y haplogroup of Gervase was spread in the Balkans. Being a Norman, Gervase the count was of Scandinavian origin on his paternal side, so that could explain the existence of a Scandinavian Y haplogroup in the Balkans.

My father has many autosomal matches [genetic relatives] with ancestors from the Adriatic Sea coast, in today's Croatia, where Dubrovnik is located. But, my father also has (on Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FTDNA) distant genetic relatives that have only British ancestors and no Eastern European or Balkan DNA. This supports the theory that Gervase the Norman count of Dubrovnik was actually Gervase of Tilbury, who was born in England.

Even though Gervase of Tilbury is a well known medieval intelectual, not much is known about his family. My theory, based on genealogical research, is that his true name was Montfort, being part of the same family as Simon de Montfort (1208-1265), much praised today for his intention to establish a parliamentary system in England with real influence over the king.

There is something that could link you to Gervase of Tilbury and the Montfort family. Your earliest known paternal ancestor, John Marshe, was from Faversham, Kent, which is close (30 km) to Maidstone, Kent. The Montfort family owned the Sutton Valence castle in Maidstone from 1238 to 1265. Moreover, the agreement reached between the baronial government (led by Simon de Montfort) and Henry III of England in 1264 was signed in Canterbury (“Peace of Canterbury”), a city which is very close (15 km) to Faversham. It is possible that you are a descendant of the Montfort family, which was of Norman origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Valence_Castle

So, there is the possibility that you have an Y haplogroup that is of Norman origin, inherited from the Montfort family. But, at this time you don't know your precise haplogroup, because you didn’t take the Big Y-700 test. What are the advantages of Big Y over your current Y-37 test? It provides you with a precise haplogroup and a list of Big Y matches, much more accurate than your current haplogroup and list of matches.

The difference between the Y-37 test (which you already took) and the Big Y test is like looking at an object with a loupe (Y-111 test) or a microscope (Big Y test).

1) Your current I-M253 haplogroup is very generic and is shared by tens of millions of men across the world. The precise haplogroup discovered by the Big Y test is shared with at most hundreds of men.

2) Your current Y-12, Y-25 and Y-37 matches are unreliable for judging the closeness of the genealogical relationship. There are hundreds or thousands of matches and you cannot know how closely they are related to you. The Big Y matches are in the single or double digits (usually less than 20), and you have with them a common ancestor who lived 3-800 years ago.

The Big Y test costs around 280 USD, because you already took the Y-111 test. For someone interested in genealogy it is definitely worth the price and is incomparably better than the Y-111 test. It is your decision if you want to buy the Big Y-700 test. I don't want to put pressure on you, you decide what you do with your money. But the Big Y test is the only one that can be used for genealogical research.

If you don’t want to upgrade your Y-DNA test because of the cost, there is a cheaper option, paid by me. I can make an account for you on Yseq.net (a German company specialized in Y-DNA testing) and buy you a test for only 20 USD. The test kit will be mailed by Yseq at the address that you give me (can be a PO box). This test checks if you have the FGC22055 mutation (SNP) on your Y chromosome. If yes, then your haplogroup is of Scandinavian origin and is very closely related to the haplogroup of the Balkan branch of I-P109.

You can read my detailed research about my father’s Y-DNA haplogroup on the forum thread below. I began to speak about Gervase of Tilbury in the last third part of the first page. See also the attached screenshot from YFull with the I-FGC22046 branch (Scandinavian) and its sub branches I-FGC* (Norman, presumed by me) and I-FGC22045 (Balkan).

https://forum.molgen.org/index.php/topic,14941.0.html
==================

[Bogdan Munteanu]

This is a two part message

PART 1

As I already said, my father has 3 autosomal matches who have the I-S14887 intermediate haplogroup, discovered from the Family Finder test. I spoke in a previous message about two of the matches, who are from Sweden. Now I speak about the third one, from the Balkans, and about a new Big Y match who appeared two weeks ago.

1) M. Kovijanic (17 cM shared autosomal DNA) has taken the Family Finder and Y-37 tests. He doesn't offer any information about himself or his ancestors. His e-mail address is the address of R. Konjokrad, who has the I-FTA28824 haplogroup (a sub-branch of I-FGC22045) and is an Y-12 and Big Y match of my father. So, M. Kovijanic very probably also has the I-FTA28824, like R. Konjokrad and A. Jaksić, who claim to be descendants of Pavle Abazović, a medieval military commander from the Drobnjak tribe. R. Konjokrad is also an autosomal match for my father, but only on GEDmatch (5.7 cM), not on FTDNA.

2) The new Big Y match is named E. Knezevic (original name Knežević, pronounced like Knezhevich). His earliest known paternal ancestor was from Tramošnica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has the I-Y58427 haplogroup (a branch of I-FGC22054).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tziKXyic6r8XkuiUkKNJRPQEKt36uaTp/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VLX3YUmXiaHz6lGSRHp_c7fhp_T0WwIu/view?usp=sharing (additional genealogical information)

E. Knezevic's haplogroup is the parent branch of I-Y50461, the haplogroup of two men (G. Barach and D. Barac) having paternal ancestors named Barać (pronunced Barach in English) from Lika-Senj county, Croatia. That's interesting, because in medieval times there was a Croatian Knežević family originating from Herzegovina who received lands in Lika region from Matthias Corvinus, the Hungarian king.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xtFLxkHOejXjO78D63RMPFuFSTkfRqds/view?usp=sharing

A family named Knežević, of Vlach origin, from the Bunić village was mentioned by Marko Šarić in his article about the 1712 Lika and Krbava census (page 379 and others).
G. Barach has the paternal ancestor from Svračkovo Selo, Croatia, located very close (10 km) to Bunić. So, the Barać family is probably descending from the Knežević family.

---------------------
The House of Knežević was a Croatian noble family, descending from the medieval village of Broćno (Brotnjo) at Čitluk, Herzegovina. First mentioned there in the 15th century, family moved in the second half of the century towards northwest, where the members of the family gained new estates from the king Matthias Korvin in Gračac and Grab in the Lika Region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Kne%C5%BEevi%C4%87

{automatic translation from Croatian}
KNEŽEVIĆ, a noble family with estates in Lika, Krbava and Međimurje. According to tradition, originally from Broćno in Herzegovina, where they were originally called Krušević; after the death of Prince Filip near Jajce in 1463, they took the surname Knezići, then Kneževići. Two of Philip's sons, whose names are unknown, went to Russia, or Poland (the general and diplomat Karol Otto Kniaziewicz, 1762–1842 could be descended from this lawyer), and the third, Ivan, escaped with his family and his company, settled in the area of ​​today's Gračac and built a fort at Gradina. In 1466, King Matthias Corvinus granted him nobility.
https://hbl.lzmk.hr/clanak/knezevic

Predmoderne etnije u Lici i Krbavi prema popisu iz 1712/14
[Pre-modern ethnic groups in Lika and Krbava according to the 1712/14 census (PDF article in Croatian)]
https://www.pilar.hr/wp-content/images/stories/dokumenti/lika/lika_1_mail_r_325.pdf
---------------------

My father has autosomal matches who have Knezevic ancestors only from Bosnia-Herzegovina. See also the screenshots linked below.

1) R. Knezevic is an 8 cM match on Ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Nikola Knezevic, was born in Alići, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was married to Janja Travancic from Zavidovići.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YihSLTTNwecsAyuhHmsVBVU4DguedXtH/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zSHE7V7iWMGLWt3e24uhB9DrXjfYa7bB/view?usp=sharing (tree in PDF format)

2) D. Klaic is an 11 cM match on Ancestry. His paternal grandmother was Marija Knežević, but her birthplace is not mentioned. I presume she was from Bosnia-Herzegovina, because the ancestors from D. Klaic's maternal side are from Orašje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iMXUpi_OsYI8XVjTinjz81qK2_6kohCE/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eq-H9N4-QpzXlHCQ8Uo_378Naod8od9j/view?usp=sharing (tree in PDF format)

3) J. Tomich is an 18 cM match on Ancestry. His paternal grandmother was Eftalie Knesevic, probably from Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where her son was born.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mxOfoezcyGVYU77WIx1kSb8AWQCKgVjD/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vB3AQS0n2D4kMwdL4PglhdbgwmSvxbzi/view?usp=sharing (tree in PDF format)

4) A. Vlahovic is a 10.1 cM match on MyHeritage. Her paternal grandmother was Matija Knezevic, probably from Bosnia-Herzegovina, where her granddaughter was born.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wPAeD26oC3RBgHhg_-BQataO2m6Y_iG-/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18nnYnGLUXThUpmX5rG0rZ4wtT1obc4PD/view?usp=sharing (tree in PDF format)

5) M. Aksin is a 9.3 cM match on MyHeritage. His paternal grandmother was Anka Knežević, born in Gornjoselci, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11L71HzccoXFijoxn_MvoTPmVdhiIAWB3/view?usp=sharing (match)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iUbblxZHXa7Iv3JBSxMu3hn0UKRutMXy/view?usp=sharing (tree in PDF format)

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 2

An update about the situation of the intemediate (partial) Y haplogroup promised by FTDNA to all the men who bought the autosomal DNA test named Family Finder (FF). You can see the initial announcement from 29 August 2023 posted on FTDNA's blog:

==========
[...] FamilyTreeDNA uses a custom Global Screening Array chip from Illumina that looks at about 700,000 SNPs from the autosomes, X chromosome, Y chromosome, and mtDNA. However, because the main purpose of this chip is to determine autosomal results (matching, ancestral populations, etc.), the chips contain minimal Y-DNA and mtDNA SNPs.

This means you’ll only receive a partial haplogroup from an autosomal test. Most customers can expect this haplogroup to have originated in the Metal Age (about 10,000 years ago). Comparatively, a predicted, broad haplogroup from a Y-STR test like the Y-37 or Y-111 will typically have originated in the Stone Age (about 100,000 years ago), and a haplogroup from the Big Y-700 will typically have originated in the Middle Ages or in the Modern Age (about 1,000 to 500 years ago)—within genealogical times.

Microarray chips like the Global Screening Array chip have been updated over time, and the Y-DNA SNP selection on the various chips has also changed and varies from company to company. Haplogroup results may vary from tester to tester, even if they are on the same direct paternal line, depending on which chip their test was processed on and if they have a “no call” or no results for a particular SNP.

While the haplogroup you’ll receive with an autosomal test is better than a broad haplogroup from the Y-37 or Y-111, only a test like the Big Y-700 will provide you with the complete story of your direct paternal line and properly place all testers from the same direct paternal line on the haplotree.[...]

Who gets one?

Genetic males with an autosomal DNA test, either a Family Finder or an unlocked autosomal transfer, will receive a Y-DNA haplogroup as part of the reporting. Because the database is so large, haplogroups will be added to your results in parts, depending on when you tested and if you tested directly with FamilyTreeDNA or with another company and transferred to us.

-Family Finder customers with new results that post after the feature is live will receive their haplogroup with the rest of their results.
-Family Finder customers who received results between March 2019 and the day before the feature is live will be the first to receive their results.
-Family Finder customers who received results prior to March 2019 will receive their results next.
-Autosomal transfer customers who have unlocked their full results will be the third group to receive their results.

https://blog.familytreedna.com/y-dna-haplogroups-family-finder/
=============

In 2024 I made a map with my father's Y-STR matches who had basic Y haplogroups (I-M253, I-L22 or I-P109) and at the same time had bought the FF test. All these men were eligible to receive the intermediate haplogroup. However, few of the matches present on my map have received it. In my last message on the Molgen forum (30 July 2024) I posted the messages exchanged with some "top contributors" of the FTDNA User Group on Facebook. It is obvious that they had no idea about the real situation.

Now it turns out that FTDNA changed its mind. The vast majority of the men who bought an FF test before 2015 will not receive an intermediate haplogroup. Apparently it's not technically possible, because of the DNA chip that was used then. If it's not possible, why did FTDNA publicly announce that all those who bought the FF test will receive an intermediate haplogroup? Why did they not test all the DNA chips before the announcement? They specifically said that "the chips have been updated over time", so they were aware of the potential problems with the chips from different generations.

I was not the only one unpleasantly surprised by this turn of events. Read the message below from the user "loobster" posted on FTDNA's forum:

==============
Message posted by loobster on 7 August 2024:

In the [FTDNA] GAP [Group Administrator Pages] Newsletter I received May 29, 2024:
"Haplogroups for the current chip are complete, and we’re working on older versions."

And in the GAP Newsletter I received Jun 27, 2024:
"We've finished issuing the Family Finder Y-DNA haplogroups for Family-Finder-tested customers through late 2015. Next will be a few that were ordered through resellers, the first chip (2010 to about Oct. 2015), and autosomal transfers. The latter won’t start until probably mid-July or so."

And then in the GAP Newsletter I received Aug. 1, 2024 it said
"We’ve completed all the Family Finder Y-DNA haplogroup assignments and will be moving to the transfers soon.

I called Customer Service today and was told very few of the Family Finder Kits that were processed in 2010 thru earlier 2015 got a Y-Haplogroup.
To anyone still hoping -- according to Customer Service, of those that were processed then, all that are going to get a Y-Haplogroup have gotten.

Anybody see anything in the earlier announcements which suggests they will only be able to assign a Y-Haplogroup for a very few of the Family Finder Kits that were processed in 2010 thru earlier 2015? Or in the one received Aug. 1, 2024 that says or suggests they were only able to assign a Y-Haplogroup for a very few of the Family Finder Kits that were processed in 2010 thru earlier 2015?

https://forums.familytreedna.com/forum/family-tree-dna-communications/announcements-and-new-features/334569-coming-soon-y-dna-haplogroups-for-family-finder?p=336336#post336336
===============

The conclusion is this. The men who bought the FF test before 2015 will not receive an intermediate (partial) Y haplogroup. However, they may receive a (very) basic haplogroup. I say this because I know someone who bought the FF test in 2013 and received the E-P2 haplogroup in June 2024. His son who bought in 2018 the Y-37 test has the E-M35 haplogroup. It must be said that E-P2 is the grandparent branch of E-M35 (E-P2>E-M215>E-M35), so the FF test from 2013 received an even more basic haplogroup than the one discovered by the Y-37 test. Of course, the haplogroup from the FF test is free and is better than nothing, but it's very far from the intermediate haplogroup promised by FTDNA in 2023. Now let's see how FTDNA deals with the intermediate Y haplogroups of the autosomal transfers. This time I don't have high hopes.

[Bogdan Munteanu]

This is a five part message.

PART 1

It is known that I-FGC22061, the South-Slavic branch of I-FGC22045, is associated with the Drobnjaks, a Vlach medieval tribe who lived initially in Bosnia and then migrated to a region that was part of Old Herzegovina and now is part of Montenegro. It is presumed by me that the haplogroup I-FGC22045 was brought to the Balkans by the Normans, more specifically by the family of Gervase, the Norman count of Ragusa [Dubrovnik] between 1186-1190. It is also known from the documents in the Dubrovnik archive that Gervase had two sons, named Martinussio and Stancius, and his brothers were also present in Ragusa. Martinussio founded a noble family with the same name, who is mentioned in Ragusa for a few hundred years. We must discover how the Y haplogroup of Gervase was passed to the Vlachs of the Drobnjak tribe.

For this we must find the proof of the genealogical connection between the family of Gervase and the Drobnjak tribe. Both the members of the Martinussio family and the Drobnjak Vlachs were merchants. The Vlachs were also carriers of goods throughout the Balkans. They carried inland the goods of the Ragusan merchants, for example the salt extracted from the saltpans around Ragusa [today Dubrovnik, Croatia], which is a port on the Adriatic Sea. And from inland they carried ore (especially silver and lead) to the Adriatic sea ports. The Ragusan merchants had colonies along the main trade routes in the Balkans, staffed with their people. The documents from the Dubrovnik archive mention many commercial interactions between the Ragusan merchants and the Vlachs (deals, sales, loans, etc.), including the Drobnjak Vlachs. It is normal to presume that in time the Ragusans and the Vlachs also developed matrimonial connections, despite not having the same religion (the Ragusans were Catholic and the Vlachs were mainly Orthodox, with a minority being Catholic). But at this time we don't have any document that registers the marriage of a Ragusan merchant with a Vlach woman. In the documents there are wifes of Ragusan merchants who have Slavic names, but we don't know if they were of Vlach origin or of Slavic origin.

There are no documents where a man from the Martinussio family married a Vlach woman. But I found a document that could prove indirectly a quasi-matrimonial relation between a Martinussio man and a Drobnjak Vlach woman. A fragment of the document is quoted in an article written by a Bosnian historian specialized in the history of the Western Balkan Vlachs.

==============
{automatic translation from Bosnian}
One discussion from June 1405 regarding the issue of ownership of a slave girl might be able to talk about the progenitor of these Dubravčićs. Namely, the dispute was between the Ugarak Vlach [named] Dubravec Ugarčić, his son Tsek, and Mona from Bosnia, otherwise the maid of Mihail Martinušić [Michael de Martinussio], having the new name Vladna. In an effort to recover their former maidservant, Dubravec and his son lost this dispute. It seems justified that these two Ugarak Vlachs could be Dubravac, the progenitor of [the] Dubravčić [family], and his son Tseko (Cechum, Cechus) is actually Kejčin Dubravčić from the famous document of the obligation of loyalty from 1419 (Ceycin Dubraucich).

{original quote in Latin displayed as footnote in the article}
“questio verteretur inter Dubrauez Ugarzich et Cechum eius filium vlachos Ugarçe ex parte una agentes et patentes et Monna in Bosina vocata nunc nominatam Vladnam famulam ser Michaelis de Martinussio” (06. 06. 1405), М. Динић, Из Дубровачког архива, III, Београд 1967, [pages] 84-85.

{automatic translation of the quote}
"the dispute was between Dubrauez Ugarzich and Cechus his son, [both] Ugarak Vlachs, on the one hand, acting and patenting, and Mona from Bosnia, now named Vladna, the servant of Ser Michael de Martinussio"

Есад КУРТОВИЋ (Esad Kurtović)
Дубравчићи, Власи, Угарци са подручја Љубомир (Dubravčići, Ugarci Vlachs from the area of ​​Ljubomir)
https://www.iib.ac.rs/assets/files/IC57(2008)-E.Kurtovic-Dubravici.VlasiUgarciSaPodrucjaLjubomira.pdf (325 KB PDF file)
https://tinyurl.com/ugarci-vlachs-kurtovic (shortened URL of the article hosted on academia.edu site)
==============

So, on 6 June 1405 there was a legal dispute between a male member of the Martinussio family and two Ugarak Vlachs concerning a female slave owned by Martinussio. Esad Kurtović said that the female was a former maidservant [female domestic servant] of the Vlachs, and they wanted her back. But this statement was not present in the original quote displayed as a footnote of the article. I searched on the internet for the book from which the quote was taken and found it. I post below the entire document from the book and then have it automatically translated. I also post a link to a screenshot of the original document.

================
{original document in Latin}
Die VI mensis junii 1405. Cum coram nobili et prudenti viro domino Symeone de Bona honorabili rectore civitatis Ragusii et juratis judicibus ser Dobre de Chalich, ser Stephano de Lucharis, ser Marino de Bona et ser Marino de Chaboga questio verteretur inter Dubrauez Vgarzich et Cechum eius filium vlachos de Vgarce ex parte una agentes et petentes et Monna in Bosina vocata nunc nominatam Vladnam famulam ser Michaelis de Martinussio. Dicebant namque dicti Dubraueç et Cechus dicte Monne: ,,Tua avia (sic) et tua mater fuerunt serve mee empticie et similiter tu es serva mea et recesisti a nobis, petimus quod tu debeas reverti ad nos et nobis servire ut serva nostra." Ad que dicta Monna respondit: ,,Est verum quod avia mea et mater mea et ego fuimus serve vestre; sed vos dedistis me regi Hostoye Bossine et ipse rex Hostoya me franchavit dicendo michi: ,,Aut vis ire ad paterenos aut ad callogerios aut ad dobrognazi (sic) aut Ragusium, ubi vis esse faciam te poni et sociari francham et liberam", et ego ellegi venire Ragusium et sic fecit me sociari hic. Ita quod non habeo plus agere vobiscum nec sum serva vestra quia fui francha a vobis quando dedisti me regi." Et dicti Dubrauez et Çechus dicebant: ,,Est verum quod dedimus te dicto regi et fuit contra voluntatem quia aliud facere non poteramus salvo id quod ipse volebat." Qua petitione et responsionibus auditis dictus dominus rector cum dictis judicibus dixit et per sententiam judicavit eo quia dicti Dubrauez et Çecho (sic) dederunt dictam Monnam dicto regi, ut supra confessi fuerunt, et ipse rex mixit eam francham a servitute Ragusium, ipsam Monnam esse liberam et francham a dictis Dobraueç et eius heredibus et ab eorum servitute et esse in libertate propria et sui juris, ut mulier franchata a servitute qua fuit.

{automatic translation}
On the 6th of June, 1405. When in the presence of the noble and wise man Lord Symeon de Bona, the honorable governor of the city of Ragusa, and the judges of the jury, Ser Dobre de Chalich, Ser Stephano de Lucharis, Ser Marino de Bona, and Ser Marino de Chaboga, the question was turned between Dubravec Ugarčić and his son Tsek, Vlachs from Ugarak, on the one hand, acting and petitioning, and Monna from Bosnia, now named Vladna, the servant of Ser Michael de Martinussio. For the said Dubravec and Tsek said to the said Monna: "Your grandmother and your mother were my servants by purchase, and likewise you are my servant and have withdrawn from us [left us]. We ask that you should return to us and serve us as our servant." To which the said Monna replied: "It is true that my grandmother and my mother and I were your servants; but you gave me to King Ostoja of Bosnia, and King Ostoja himself freed me, saying to me: "Either you want to go to the Paterenos or to the Callogerios or to the Dobrognazi or to Ragusa, wherever you want to be I will make you be placed [there] and associated free and clear", and I chose to come to Ragusa and so he made me be associated here. So that I have no more to do with you nor am I your servant because I was freed from you when you gave me to the king." And the said Dubravec and Tsek said: "It is true that we gave you to the said king and it was against our will because we could not do anything else except what he wanted." Having heard the said petition and the answers, the said lord governor with the judges said and judged by sentence that because the said Dubravec and Tsek gave the said Monna to the said king, as they confessed above, and the king himself freed her from the servitude in Ragusa, that the said Monna itself was free and clear from the said Dubravec and his heirs and from their servitude, and to be in her own freedom and of her right, as a woman freed from the servitude she was in [before].

М. Динић, Из Дубровачког архива, III (M. Dinić, From the Dubrovnik archive, III, p.84-85)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nPU6EYNnOdFz-y38triDiDRhKz8xuakZ/view?usp=sharing (screenshot of the document)
I used the free site New OCR to extract the text from the screenshot, and Google Translate to translate it.
===============

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 2

Now let's discuss the document from 6 June 1405. The female named Monna from Bosnia was a famula of Michael de Martinussio in Ragusa [Dubrovnik, Croatia]. The term "famula" was used at that time for a woman who was a paid servant, not a slave. See the article below.

==============
[...] I would like to mention that the term famula was never used to designate a slave woman (always [called] ancilla or serva), but always a servant working on the basis of a contract.

Neven Budak
Slavery in late medieval Dalmatia/Croatia: labour, legal status, integration (p. 758)
https://www.academia.edu/7484826/Slavery_in_Late_Medieval_Dalmatia_Croatia
============

However, Monna was a former slave of Dubravec and his son Tsek, who were Ugarak Vlachs. In Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, languages that are almost the same, the name Ugarak has the plural Ugarci. This is pronounced in English as Ugartsi, because the letter "c" in the Slavic languages written with the Latin alphabet is pronounced "ts/tz". So the words Ugarak, Ugarac or Ugarci denote the same people. Similarly we have the Drobnjak Vlachs with the plural Drobnjaci (pronunced like Drobnyatsi in English).

Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about the Vlachs from medieval Bosnia-Herzegovina.

===========
Vlachs in medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina were a Western Balkans population descending from a mixture of Romanized pre-Slavic Romance-speaking peoples and the South Slavs. From the 14th century the ethnic meaning of term "Vlach" was replaced with societal meaning and often meant the Slavic population with similar lifestyle. They practiced transhumance as herdsmen, shepherds, farmers, and in time developed peculiar socio-political organizational units known as katuns. With their caravans, Vlach carried out much of the traffic between Bosnian inland and coastal cities such as Dubrovnik. They also had close contacts and militarily served various Bosnian noble families and kings.
[...]
Vlachs are first mentioned in Bosnian documents in c. 1234 by ban Matej Ninoslav. Sources from 1361, 1385, 1399, 1406, 1407, 1408 and 1417 among others mention them in relation to Bosnian bans and kings. Vlachs in the Bosnian state of Tvrtko I were considered as military element. The relationship of Vlach katuns and feudal holdings can be traced from the 14th century. By 1382 they were under the jurisdiction of the Bosnian ruler, and later assigned to large landowners.
[...]
In 1382, Vukoslav Piščić was named as knez of all Vlachs by King Tvrtko I of Bosnia. As the earliest noble landowners in Hum (later Herzegovina), with katun Tomić, they were assigned to the Sanković noble family. In 1409, when Tvrtko I conquered parts of Rascia and Zeta, Vlachs were inhabiting some 100 katuns. They were mentioned as "Vlachorum congregationes et cetus". In the area around Stolac and Žabljak there were so many Vlachs that at the end of the 15th century the territory was called Donji Vlasi (Lower Vlachs). The Gornji Vlasi (Upper Vlachs) were only mentioned by Mavro Orbini.

The 1376 and 1454 documents by Republic of Ragusa [Dubrovnik] about trade with Bosnian lands mention Vlachi et Bosgnani. In the 1418 document by Grgur Nikolić, Vlachs, Serbs and Ragusians are clearly distinguished. In the 14th century documents, they were treated as shepherds from mountains that separate Croatia and Bosnia. It is argued that some group of Vlachs in the 14th century migrated to Zagora and Cetina county in Croatia, followed by the sudden appearance of stećaks [memorial stones] in the territory they lived on. In 1436, Vlachs are mentioned living around the Cetina, with Croats and Serbs which were part of Count Ivan Frankopan’s estate. At a time of social unrest, the Vlachs often fled to the area of Ragusa or Kotor, served in the military of Ragusa during the Ottoman threat, and when most of Herzegovina was occupied by the Ottomans by 1472, once again fled to Ragusan territory. Some data of historic documents show that a part of Vlachs belonged to Bosnian Church, and they largely contributed to the spread of this church.
[...]
In southeastern Hum (later southeastern Herzegovina) between 1393–1437 many Vlach katuns emerged. The primary lords of the Herzegovinian Vlachs were Bosnian Slavic noble families, the Kosača, Pavlović, Sanković and Nikolić. The Vlachs from Herzegovina sometime plundered lands of Republic of Ragusa in the 14th and 15th century and grew rich by trade of goods between Ragusa and the mines of Bosnia. Vlachs were surnamed Pliščić, Gleđević, Ugarac, Boban, Mirilović, Vragović, Kresojević, Nenković, Bančić, Pilatovac, Pocrnja, Drobnjak and Riđan.[...] Other katun Vlachs were Boljun, Bukvić, Burmaz, Godun, Hardomilić, Horojević, Hrabren, Jurjević, Kersojević, Kićurić, Kujavić, Milobradačić, Perventinić, Pribinović, Rudinjan, Veseličić, Vitković, Vojnović, Vragović, Zotović.
[...]
They lived in small villages called katun whose chieftain were titled katunar. Around them they placed guards; guard stations were called varde or vardišta. They practiced transhumance as herdsmen and shepherds, and became agricultural when settled permanently. They exported livestock products; animal skin, wool, cheese, butter and dried meat. Other exports included honey and wood. The Vlach cheese was reputable because of fat [...]. With their caravans, led by kramar, mostly composed of horses numbering between 10–100, they conducted a large part of the trade between inland and coastal cities. Their military tradition and mobile lifestyle was used by the Bosnian lords and later by the Ottomans. [...] The emergence of the stećaks and their symbolism in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the scholars is often related to Vlach communities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlachs_in_medieval_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
=============

Now about the "katuns", the communities in which most of the medieval Vlachs lived.

==============
The katun [...] is a rural self-governing community in the Balkans, traditional of the living style of Albanians, Vlachs (in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia), as well as some Slavic communities of hill people. Traditionally, a katun is based on strong kinship ties and the practice of a closed farming economy based on stockbreeding, constantly moving to find pasture. The community based its organizational, political and economic activities on the decisions of a council of elders or a senior member appointed as its leader.
[...]
A katun consisted of a community of several families or households gathered around one leader who directed the organizational, political and economic goals of his group. The main occupation in the katun was always cattle breeding, almost exclusively sheep and to some extent goats, so the community used to be quite mobile.
[...]
The shape and scope of the katuns varied, and their warrior companies were important. These companies used to serve under local Slavic noblemen, who often bore the title of voivode. They sometimes served under foreign militaries, such as the Venetians and the Ottomans. In the end, some katuns managed to expand into larger territories, where there was a lack of influence from the regional or central government and social relations. In the second half of the 14th and 15th centuries, some of these katuns built permanent villages, outside or in the župas [counties] themselves.
[...]
The first mentions of katuns in medieval Bosnia dates back from the 14th century and are related to the Burmazi (1300), Banjani (1319), Drobnjaci (1354), Predojevići (1356), Mirilovići (1366), Zlokruha (1367), Žurovići (1367), Ugarci (1368), Vlahovići (1368), Tomići (1369), Vragovići (1376), Plijeske (1377), Prijeraci (1377), Kresojevići (1379), Perutinići (1386), Hrabreni (1388), Kutlovići (1393) and Maleševci (1397).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katun_(community)
==============

According to the Kurtović article quoted above, the Ugarak Vlachs lived in an area around Ljubinje, a town located 50 km from Dubrovnik. The Drobnjak Vlachs at that time lived also close to Dubrovnik (Ragusa), because they are mentioned in many documents as doing business in Dubrovnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubinje

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 3

After this brief introduction about Vlachs, let's go back to the document.

Dubravec and Tsek said that Monna, along with her mother and grandmother were their slaves. But Monna somehow left them and they wanted her back. Indeed, if a slave woman had a child, the child would automatically become a slave of the same master, so this explains the grandmother-mother-daughter succession in slavery.

But before discussing the document further we must learn about the life of the slaves, particularly women, before slavery was officially banned in Ragusa in 1416. Women were brought as slaves to Dubrovnik in order to work mainly as maids. However, as can be seen from the articles quoted below, sometimes they were also the mistresses of their masters and had children with them.

=======================
{automatic translation from Serbian}

What was the life of slaves in medieval Dubrovnik actually like? Female slaves came to Dubrovnik when they were quite young, to a large extent, most of them were between the ages of 12 and 19. As they were not free, they were not meant to marry, and they could not start a family like most medieval women. Archival documents testify, however, that many female slaves were sold together with their children. They could have had children either from the pre-capture period or with their original masters. There are a number of examples of the release of female slaves with children, probably descendants of the owners.
[...]
The sexual exploitation of female slaves in medieval Dubrovnik was present and can be seen in the mirror of archival material as it looked like. That the slaves were sometimes
also the mistresses of their masters is also proven by the following, very specific case, but even more so by the result of the court case that followed. Namely, if it were determined that the women were right, that is, that the masters really kept them as lovers and not as slaves, then they could be freed, as was determined in the case of the slave Stana. Her master bought her and took her to Italy, and Stana herself was originally from Bosnia, that is from Rudina, where most of the slaves came from, especially in the 1380s. Stana was Radil's daughter and was bought from her parents. She refused to return to her previous master, when she returned to Dubrovnik from Apulia [Italy], precisely because she considered herself a free woman since she was his lover and that he kept her as such, and not as a slave as he had bought her. The sworn members of the Dubrovnik court decided that Stana was a free woman, and she became one on 18 July 1283.
[...]
As elsewhere in the Mediterranean and in Europe at the time, slaves were freed in Dubrovnik as well. These writings existed throughout the Middle Ages, but were most numerous at the end of the 13th century. Liberation used to follow for a larger sum of money, but often for the same reasons as in Italy or Spain. Emancipation was a deed pleasing to God, for the salvation of the soul and atonement for the sins committed by the former slave owner. However, there are significantly more cases when this is done for a certain amount of money. There were also cases when slaves, especially female slaves, received something else along with their freedom so that they could start a new life in freedom. Most of the freedmen
continued their lives as servants, mostly in Dubrovnik [Ragusa], and there were also examples of slaves who married and continued to live outside the Republic [of Ragusa] or returned to their native land.

Борис Стојковски (Boris Stojkovski)
Положај Робља у Средњовековном Дубровнику Између Легислативе и Праксе (The Position of Slaves in Medieval Dubrovnik Between Legislation and Practice)
https://tinyurl.com/slaves-medieval-ragusa (shortened URL of the article hosted on academia.edu site)
====================

====================
The oldest preserved testament from a Dalmatian city, written in 918 by Andrew, the prior of Zadar, reveals more evidence on early medieval slavery. Andrew belonged to a rich family which in his lifetime founded the biggest monastery in the town, the Benedictine abbey of St. Chrisogonus. His wealth consisted of five houses, numerous vineyards, lands and cattle. He either freed or left to his heirs thirty male and female slaves.
[...]
A somewhat later testament of Peter, the prior of Split, sheds some light on the position of some of these women. Peter freed his daughter Gadatia together with her mother, his aulea ancilla. It seems that some slaves, especially female, had a chance to get integrated into their master’s family, although we shall never know how they were accepted and treated by other family members, first of all their half-brothers and sisters with whom they had to share their father’s inheritance. The somewhat later example of Dobromir, a Croatian slave freed in 1125 by his Venetian master Peter Staniario (Stanier), indicates the possibility of full integration into the master’s family, since not only did Dobromir have the right to use the family name of the Staniarii, but his descendants, as it seems, became by the begining of the thirteenth century the only bearers of this noble name. It is true that this case is of Venetian, and not Dalmatian origin, but we might assume that at that time cultural differences between the regions were even smaller than in the later centuries. The most valuable source for investigating slavery in Croatia is the so called Cartulary of St. Peter de Gumay, actually a montaneum [cartulary, medieval manuscript] belonging to a Benedictine monastery situated on Croatian territory, in the vicinity of Split.
[...]
From the begining of the 14th century in Dubrovnik there was a clear increase in the number of persons who entered service on the basis of a contract and for a certain period of time. Their number rose suddenly in the second decade of the century. During the duration of the contract, these persons were deprived of most of their rights, and were under the full authority of their masters. Moreover, unless specifically prohibited by the contract, they could have been sold to third persons, which indeed happened very often. Some of them entered into lifelong service, which put them in almost the same position as «real» slaves. The majority of women, however, entered into a time limited service, with an average duration of about twelve and a half years. There was no significant difference in the duration of the contracts between those women who received some salary for their work, and those who worked only for clothing, food, and shelter.
[...]
The freedom of enslaved persons was further restricted by the right of the master to decide about their marriages and about his ownership of children born by slaves. Although it was possible for a slave woman to marry a free man, their children would belong to the slave’s master.

Neven Budak
Slavery in late medieval Dalmatia/Croatia: labour, legal status, integration
https://www.academia.edu/7484826/Slavery_in_Late_Medieval_Dalmatia_Croatia
https://www.persee.fr/doc/mefr_1123-9883_2000_num_112_2_9067
==================

==================
Economically speaking, Bosnia (together with Serbia) gained suddenly in importance when ancient mining sites for precious metals were rediscovered in the thirteenth century. The large deposits of silver, gold, copper, iron, lead, and other ores helped to meet the demand for precious metals, spurred by the increased use of money in western Europe, that could no longer be filled by existing mines north of the Alps. Yet Bosnia did not really benefit from this lucky coincidence. Exports from these mines, silver in particular, were immediately monopolized by Ragusan merchants and formed the basis for Ragusa’s rise to become the most important trade partner and transshipment point for long-distance trade on the eastern Adriatic coast. From Novo Brdo in Serbia and Srebrenica in Bosnia, the two most important mines of the Balkan region, Ragusan traders brought precious metals down the Neretva River to the Adriatic, and shipped them from Ragusa on Ragusan or Venetian ships, first to Venice and from there to other places in western Europe, north and south of the Alps. Most servi [male slaves] and ancillae [female slaves] from Bosnia (or Serbia) who were brought to Ragusa took the same route. Merchants of precious metals traveled side by side with kidnappers and slave traders. They may even have been the same people.

Juliane Schiel
The Ragusan “Maids-of-all-Work”
https://brill.com/view/journals/jgs/5/2/article-p139_2.xml?language=en
===================

===================
Ragusans favored women as slaves overwhelmingly. Nearly 90 percent of the slave charters recorded sales of women. The mountainous land above the Dalmatian coast suffered levies on its manpower from Roman times through the era of Turkish domination. This thirteenth-century levy differed from the others only in that it drew upon the women of the region, not the men. The women, like the men, impressive in their size and strength, suggest by their greater numbers that urban domestic slavery was considered to be as well, or better, served by female laborers. Women might be housed within the domestic establishment. They stood in ranking order to the ancilla babiça [mammy or wet nurse], nutrix [wet nurse], and baiula [governess]of the household. They were thought more docile and tractable than men, and, deprived of a family network of their own, probably proved so in day-to-day life. The needs of a domestic household meshed readily with those of the commercial establishment housed with it. The enslaved mountain women could lift bales, clean, wrap, sort, and process exportable wax, skins, and other goods with no more complex skills than those they were acquiring to serve domestic needs. Equal to the work, they appeared to be easily controlled and motivated through a system of incentives and rewards.

The conjunction of a recruitment policy for itinerant bachelor artisans and the importing of female slaves insured urban order and a degree of tranquility but simultaneously exacerbated the market problem. Female slaves provided some bachelors with a domestic establishment, sex, and companionship. The traveling years, when young men made their fortunes abroad in prospering towns like Ragusa, were being lengthened in these decades, and loneliness accompanied by alienation was a possible source of civic disturbance. A temporary household with a slave remedied this problem. Francho Sacchetti, the son of a Florentine in residence in Ragusa in the early decades of the fourteenth century, may have had a slave girl named Maria for his mother. His birth predated his father’s marriage considerably, although he was an accepted member of his father’s married house-hold. As Eugene Genovese has remarked about such relationships, they were commonplace in slave systems and to be expected in the atmosphere of intimacy encouraged by domestic slavery. Yet few offspring of such liaisons fared as well as Sacchetti.

Susan Mosher Stuard
To Town to Serve: Urban Domestic Slavery in Medieval Ragusa
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/oa_edited_volume/chapter/3628843
====================

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 4

Let's continue with the document.

Monna, the former slave, responds to the accusations of her former owners, the two Ugarak Vlachs. She says that she was given by them to the Bosnian King Ostoja and the King freed her. Then the King presented her four options from which to choose her future as a free woman:

1) go to the Paterenos [actually Patarenes]
2) go to the Callogerios
3) go to the Dobrognazi
4) go to Ragusa

The Patarenos were the followers of the pataria, a Catholic reform movement which lasted from 1057 to 1075.

===============
The pataria was an eleventh-century Catholic movement focused on the city of Milan in northern Italy, which aimed to reform the clergy and ecclesiastic government within the city and its ecclesiastical province, in support of papal sanctions against simony and clerical marriage. Those involved in the movement were called patarini (singular patarino), patarines or patarenes, a word perhaps chosen by their opponents, the etymology of which is uncertain. The movement, associated with urban unrest in the city of Milan, is generally considered to have begun in 1057 and ended in 1075.

The name Patarenes has also been used for the unconnected earlier Bogomils and the later Albigensians or Cathars, who in contrast were anti-papal and non-Catholic. These were declared heretical sects. They are considered by some as a precursor to the Protestant Reformation, however some sources fail to differentiate these different groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataria

{automatic translation from Italian}
In 1089 , Pope Urban II ruled that sacraments imparted by simoniacal and corrupt priests were equally valid. This decision completely dismantled the Patarine theses. The disorientation of the Patarines worsened with Callistus II, when it was realized that the Church of the poor would never arise, indeed the Pope had begun to reintegrate the old members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy that the Patarines had fought. At this point a split occurred among the supporters of the Pataria: some accepted the compromise by returning to the ranks of the "reformed" Church; others left for the pilgrimage, took up the life of a hermit or joined the first crusade; still others, convinced that the agreement between the Church and the Empire was the symptom of the fact that the ecclesiastical hierarchy was by its nature corrupted by worldly goods, embraced heretical theses, approaching Catharism and being openly persecuted for this from 1185 by Pope Lucius III.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patarini

{automatic translation from Italian}
Numerous late antique and medieval Christological doctrines are commonly referred to as Manichaean. This list includes the Priscillians (4th century - Spain), the Paulicians and the Tondrakians (Syria and Armenia and then Thrace from the 7th to the 12th century), the Bogomils (according to the Greek Church) and Paterenes (according to the Latin Church) of the Balkans (from the 10th to the 16th century) and finally the Publicans (distortion of Paulicians), Patari and Cathars in Germany, France and central-northern Italy.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichei_medievali
===============

Of course, in 1405, after more than 300 years from the beginning of the movement, there were no Patarenes left. In the document written in Latin, the name was used probably for the followers of the Bosnian Church.

===============
The Bosnian Church (Serbo-Croatian: Crkva bosanska/Црква босанска) was a schismatic Christian church in medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina that was independent from and considered heretical by both the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. Historians traditionally connected the church with the Bogomils, although this has been challenged and is now rejected by the majority of scholars. Adherents of the church called themselves simply Krstjani ("Christians") or Dobri Bošnjani ("Good Bosnians"). The church's organization and beliefs are poorly understood, because few if any records were left by church members and the church is mostly known from the writings of outside sources — primarily Catholic ones. The monumental tombstones called stećak that appeared in medieval Bosnia, as well as Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro, are sometimes identified with the Bosnian Church.
[...]
The bid to consolidate Catholic rule in Bosnia in the 12th to 13th centuries proved difficult. The Banate of Bosnia held strict trade relations with the Republic of Ragusa, and Bosnia's bishop was under the jurisdiction of Ragusa. This was disputed by the Hungarians, who tried to achieve their jurisdiction over Bosnia's bishops, but Bosnia's first Ban Kulin averted that. In order to conduct a crusade against him, the Hungarians turned to Rome, complaining to Pope Innocent III that the Kingdom of Bosnia was a centre of heresy, based on the refuge that some Cathars (also known as Bogomils or Patarenes) had found there. To avert the Hungarian attack, Ban Kulin held a public assembly on 8 April 1203 and affirmed his loyalty to Rome in the presence of an envoy of the Pope, while the faithful abjured their mistakes and committed to following the Catholic doctrine. Yet, in practice this was ignored. After the death of Kulin in 1204, a mission was sent to convert Bosnia to Rome but failed.
[...]
It was not until Pope Nicholas' Bull Prae Cunctis in 1291 that the Franciscan-led Inquisition was imposed on Bosnia. Bogomilism was eradicated in Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire in the 13th century, but survived in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the Ottoman Empire gained control of the region in 1463.
[...]
According to Bašić, the Bosnian Church was dualist in character, and so was neither a schismatic Catholic nor Orthodox Church. According to Mauro Orbini (d. 1614), the Patarenes and the Manicheans were two Christian religious sects in Bosnia. The Manicheans had a bishop called djed and priests called strojnici (strojniks), the same titles ascribed to the leaders of the Bosnian Church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Church
================

What is interesting is the fact that Ostoja the Bosnian King apparently was a member of the Bosnian Church himself. And he did not like that members of that church were being captured and sold as slaves to Ragusa [Dubrovnik], so he complained in 1401 to the Ragusan rulers. So, it is not surprising at all that he freed Monna from slavery if she also was a member of the Bosnian Church, as his advice that she could go to the Patarenes indicates.

===============
Stephen Ostoja (Serbo-Croatian: Stjepan Ostoja / Стјепан Остоја; died September 1418) was King of Bosnia from 1398 to 1404 and from 1409 to 1418. He was a member of the House of Kotromanić, most likely son of Vladislaus and brother of King Tvrtko I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostoja_of_Bosnia

{automatic translation from Bosnian}
In the political life of Bosnia, Ostoja appeared late as a pretender, in 1397, and he was supported by the most powerful big men Sandalj Hranić Kosača , Pavle Radinović and Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić. [...] Two years after coming to the throne [in 1398], he complained to the people of Dubrovnik about the sale of Bosnians into slavery in that city. Since Roman Catholics could not be sold as slaves, it is assumed that they were members of the Bosnian Church, to which Ostoja himself certainly belonged, as the only non-Catholic king of Bosnia. In this endeavor, he was supported by the Bosnian Grand Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, also a member of the Bosnian Church. There was a short war with Dubrovnik, but their success was evident sixteen years later, when the sale of slaves was banned in Dubrovnik.

https://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stjepan_Ostoja,_kralj_Bosne
===============

[Bogdan Munteanu]

PART 5

The second option given to Monna was to go to the Callogerios. This was a monastic order belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church and who also accepted females as nuns.

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The Caloyers (Greek: καλόγερος, kalos ghérôn, "good old men"), also spelled Calogers or Calogeri, were Greek monks who followed the rule of Saint Basil. Both male and female, they inhabited Mount Athos (only men), and disseminated throughout many of the churches of the East. They lived either in monasteries, as at Mount Athos and Meteora or insulated in hermitages, devoted to agriculture and prayer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloyers
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The third option is by far the most interesting one. The freed Monna could go to the Dobrognazi. Who were these Dobrognazi? They were the Drobnjak Vlachs. I spoke in part 2 of this message about the fact that the plural of the name Drobnjak is Drobnjaci, pronunced in English as Drobnyatsi. Those that wrote the documents in Latin always wanted that he names transcribed in Latin sound just like the original. In Ragusa, Latin was the official written language for the documents and Italian was the spoken language. The name Dobrognazi sounds in Latin and Italian just like Dobronyatsi. Of course Drobnjaci (Drobnyatsi) and Dobronjaci (Dobronyatsi) are not completely identical, but both names refer to the same Vlach tribe and this is a well established fact. In the medieval documents, the Drobnjak Vlachs frequently appear with a slightly modified name, because the majority of the documents were written in Latin and not all those that wrote the documents knew how to transcribe the Drobnjak name. So, the various names like Dobrognazi, Drobgnazi, Droggnazi, Drognazi, Droghgnazi used in Latin documents are the transcriptions of the name Drobnjak or its plural Drobnjaci. This can be seen in the article about the Drobnjaci Vlachs linked below, in which there are quotes from many documents written in Latin.

You can see in the screenshot below the names Drobnjak and Drobnjaci written in the Serbian text in Cyrillic alphabet, and also in Latin alphabet (used by the Croatian and Bosnian languages) added by me. In the footnotes you can see three variants of these names (Dropgnach, Drobgnach and Dobrognazi) written in the Latin alphabet used in the medieval Ragusan documents. The screenshot is of the page 119 from the article "Средњовјековни Дробњаци у изворима и литератури с посебним освртом на Гацко" ("Medieval Drobnjaci in sources and literature with special reference to Gacko") written by Радмило Б. Пекић (Radmilo B. Pekić).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Od4K2lSkVnEtV4hccZZGReJDoHUPtSIx/view?usp=sharing (screenshot)

https://tinyurl.com/medieval-vlachs-gacko (shortened URL of the article hosted on academia.edu)

There are many other variants of the transcribed Drobnjak name encountered in the medieval archives.

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The tribal name Drobnjaci (Drobignaçich, Drobgnach, Droggnaz, Dropgnach, Drupinach, Idobrignach) in Herzegovina can be followed from 14th century Ragusan sources: Dragossius Costadinich vlachus Drobignaçich (1365), Goitan Banilouich et Bogosclauus Dessiminich vlacchi de chatono de Dobrgnaçi (1376), Vulchota filius Dobroslaui Drobgnach (1377), Dubraueç Chostadinich et Jurech Bogutouich Drobnachi (1377), and so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drobnjaci
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The fact that the King of Bosnia gave Monna the possibility to go to the Drobnjak Vlachs means that this was a safe option for her, that she would be protected there. At that time there were many other Vlach tribes and katuns in Bosnia, as was mentioned in the above quotes from the articles about the Bosnian Vlachs and their katuns. The explanation for the Drobnjaks being chosen as the only Vlach option is that Monna's family was originally from the Drobnjak tribe.

The fourth and last option the King gave Monna was to go to Ragusa. And this is the option that she chose in the end. She was a free woman and she could be hired as a paid servant by a Ragusan family, which is what happened. Monna was hired by Michael de Martinussio. We don't know why she chose this option, maybe she wanted to start a new life in the biggest city of the region, and this may explain why she changed her name from Monna to Vladna. It is also possible that she wanted to earn some money before returning to the territory of the Drobnjak tribe.

The document with the legal dispute continues with the fact that the two Ugarak Vlachs acknowleged that they had given Monna to the Bosnian king, although it was against their will, because they had no other choice. The Ragusan judges ruled in favor of Monna, so her freedom was officially confirmed.

We can only speculate what happened next. We can presume that Monna/Vladna was in a relationship with Michael de Martinussio and they had children. Some of their male children could have returned to the Drobnjak tribe when they became adults, or Monna herself returned with her children to the territory of the Drobnjak tribe. But it is plausible that these male children were the ones who brought into the Drobnjak tribe the presumed I-FGC22045 haplogroup of the Martinussio family, inherited from Gervase the Norman count of Ragusa [Dubrovnik].

In conclusion, the route taken by the I-FGC22045 haplogroup from its place of origin to its destination is almost confirmed. I say almost, because the link between the Martinussio family and the Drobnjak tribe must be confirmed not only by historical documents, but also by genetic testing, just like the link between the Martinussio family and the Montfort family.

Scandinavians > Normans > Ragusan Merchants > Balkan Vlachs

Scandinavians > Gervase the Norman Count > Martinussio Family > Drobnjak Vlachs

In my opinion, the more detailed route is the following :

Scandinavia > France (Montfort Family) > England (Montfort Family) > Ragusa (Gervase of Tilbury and Martinussio Family) > Balkans (Drobnjak Vlachs)