Hi all,
Very interesting posts. I have just joined yesterday with the aim of learning more about my 3 thal athletes and why they are doing better than most in my athletics group.
My interest to join was mainly due to the name Lisa Cammilleri. She reminds me of a Maltese endurance athlete with the same name.
Actually I want to point out that CAMMILLERI is a PURELY MALTESE SURNAME hundreds of years old. (meaning the people from Hal{village} Millieri-then change to Casal Millieri and hence Cammilleri) Its one of the commonest surnames.
I had learnt in University that Thal is very common in mediterranean region but despite of this in Malta we not aware enough about it.
In fact I did not believe it was as common until I started testing my athletes blood on regular basis. Had met with just one case few years back but now with 10% of my athletes with thal I believe its my mission to help my thal athletes (and other thals more.)
Can anyone trace Lisa's Maltese relatives? Nowing she was from New York - Probably they are Gozitan because many Gozitans prefered to emigrate to New York to find work there.
Gozo (Ghawdex) is our sister island separated by a small stretch of sea. When in the 1530s the muslem Pirate Dragut took all Gozo's inhabitants to slavery, Gozo was repopulated by Mlatese thats why they have identical surnames to us Maltese.
On the other hand, Camilleri is so common that her relaitives could have come from any Maltese Village and in fact I have an old uncle (80years) who is Camilleri from Hal Qormi and he had emigrated to Pennsylvania and lived in California, possibly lived also in New York.
Malta+Gozo is a small nation with only 400,000 locals but 1.5 million emigrant relatives in Australlia, USA, UK and Canada.
Regards,
Mark Farrugia
Edited to rename subject. ~Danielle