Several descendants of Michal Mižigár and Anna Repaská have taken autosomal DNA tests, and while that type of test it is not specific enough for historical research, it does at least confirm our relationship within that paternal line. Any male individuals with the Mizikar/Mizigar surname, outside of that branch, that is interested in completing Y-DNA tests may contact me for information. Each additional test allows us to expand our connections to other families and refine our shared paternal history. Please note that until other family members complete such testing, I will use terminology that indicates DNA results as "my" probable origins - as opposed to "our" probable origins.

Detailed SNP testing shows my refined subclade as I-Y3548 - which is also known as I-S17250. Under the old style, again based on the 2016 ISOGG tree, the label would be "I2a1b2a1a". It is not known at this time if this is my terminal SNP/subclade as additional mutations are frequently being identified and the tests for them are continually being developed.

Currently, many researchers assign the I-Y3548 subclade to the "White Croatian" Slavs and that the most recent common ancestor for this branch lived about 1800 to 2000 years ago. For those not aware, colors were historically used by various cultures to represent the cardinal directions. The primary European cartography assignments were "white" for west, "green" for east, "red" for south and "black" for north. Usually the terms represented a cardinal direction away from a groups suspected origins. Therefore, the term "White Croatians" simply means "Western Croatians" or "the Croats that moved to the west".

There are many competing theories on the origin and distribution of the White Croatians, especially concerning their possible prehistory in the Caucuses or Persia; but the generally accepted outline is this: 1) they were pushed out of an area around the Sea of Azov by the Huns around 400 AD; 2) they subsequently settled in central Europe along the Carpathian mountains; 3) between 500 AD and 700 AD, a significant number, if not the majority, migrated southward into the Balkans; and 4) those that remained in eastern Europe were gradually assimilated into the overlapping territory and cultures of Kievan Rus Ruthenia and Polish Galicia. Y-DNA STR testing shows that outside of Slovakia, my closest genetic cousins are clustered in those historical places - which are today located in western Ukraine and southeastern Poland.

If my ancestors were not already living in the area around Slovinky, they most likely migrated there sometime between 1700 and 1750 from Ruthenia or Galicia as part of an effort to repopulate the counties of "Upper Hungary". At that time, outside of a few Polish and German controlled towns, the area was largely uninhabited. This was due to various factors - including war, disease and even a few natural disasters. The Habsburg monarchy was concerned with the possibility of foreign influence and sought to populate the area through various incentive programs. This allowed them to fortify the frontier region against possible invasion while also providing additional cultivated land and tax revenue.

However, while the area was vacant of people, the land was still largely owned and operated as feudal estates. This meant that new arrivals were forced to satisfy three basic conditions to settle in an area: 1) they needed to find available housing; 2) they needed to find available employment that aligned with their skills; and 3) they needed to find a place that would be willing to accept them based on their culture and religion. That last component had the effect of creating pockets of Catholic, Orthodox and even Protestant settlers. The area around Slovinky would have been an accommodating destination for Orthodox migrants willing to work in the copper, and then later, coal mines.

There are a few families with the Mizigar surname that are labeled as "Zingar" - the Latin term for "Gypsy" - on historical documents. My Y-DNA test results indicate it is very unlikely that my paternal ancestoral line was ethnically Roma, which are largely represented by the various Indian/Asian branches beneath the H haplogroup - followed by haplogroups E, J and R. However, it is certainly possible - or even plausible - that some of our ancestors married into the Roma culture during this period of movement.

There are two other possibilities for the appearance of the "Zingar" label. The first is that the term was used, although rarely, as slang or a general epithet for the traveling, wandering or vagrant class - especially for those viewed as "outsiders" for a particular location. The term, when it appears with the name, is almost always in Roman Catholic, western Slav locations. Our Orthodox, eastern Slav ancestors may have simply been lumped into the same general classification of "undesirables". The label does seem to have been applied to transient families, as it is usually attached to a single baptism record - with no subsequent records of baptisms for siblings or further general family records of marriages or deaths.

The other, and most unlikely explanation, is that there is no familial connection to those with the label. Many Roma have historically adopted local surnames, languages and customs when they settled in an area. However, the probability that several different families would select a distinct, non-traditional surname like "Mizigar" would seem very, very unlikely.