Are there people in Italy who can trace back their family history to roman times?

by elcronopio

Are there, for example, people who can claim to descend from the Gens Iulia?

victorywillbemine_

While you wait for a further answer I will copy/paste an earlier answer I gave to a similar question:

The short answer is no.

There are people who can trace their ancestry back to the old nobility of Europe during the Medieval period and, from there back to Charlemagne. It’s possible to trace oneself (if you can verify it of course) a few generations prior to Charlemagne to a figure named Arnulf of Metz (c. 582-640) but beyond that the trail goes cold because no one is certain who Arnulf’s parents were.

We know that Paul the Deacon, a Lombardi monk from two centuries after Arnulf claimed that Arnulf was a Roman but if this is true, and it’s a big if, Arnulf still would have been born after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire; more than 100 years later in fact.

Some genealogists speculate that Arnulf was a descendent of the fourth century Roman Flavius Afranius Syagrius but this is only speculative and based largely on the identity of Arnulf’s wife Dode (or Doda) who is not even named during Arnulf’s lifetime.

So is it possible that Arnulf of Metz was descended from Romans? Sure. Can it be conclusively proven today? Nope.

Therefore no descent from Roman antiquity can be definitely established today.

vienna81

This is a similar post which has answers relating to european family lines

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12lghm/whats_the_longest_traceable_historical_lineage/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I think Elizabeth II can trace her family tree to Alfred the Great, and then back to the sixth century. But there is no lineage before then