Blood Feud and Migration in Southeastern Europe: Their Influence on Genealogical Interpretation

This study examines the influence of blood feud and migration on genealogical interpretation in Southeastern Europe. It focuses on the historical processes through which blood-feud practices could lead to displacement, concealment of identity, changes of surname, migration, and incorporation into another social lineage (pribraćivanje). The study considers the consequences of these processes for the interpretation of genealogical origins and patrilineal descent, particularly in cases where social or surname-based genealogy does not correspond to biological paternal continuity. Particular attention is given to the relationship between historical and customary sources, legal and normative traditions, oral and written genealogical evidence, ethnographic records, and Y-chromosomal evidence. The study does not treat a Y-DNA difference as proof of a blood feud. Rather, genetic evidence is considered one component of genealogical investigation that may identify a patrilineal discontinuity requiring historical and genealogical interpretation. The analysis therefore places genetic findings within their broader documentary, geographical, social, legal, and customary context. Examples from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Croatia, Greece, and other parts of Southeastern Europe are considered comparatively, with particular attention to the persistence and transformation of customary mechanisms of blood feud, reconciliation, migration, and lineage affiliation. The contemporary case of sasmos in Crete is also considered as evidence that related customary mechanisms remain relevant to the interpretation of historical and genealogical processes.