Wondering if I have Armeni roots?

[confusedx2]

I am afraid I haven't got any written or DNA evidence for my claim due to coming from a very war torn region where records were often destroyed and haven't been kept very accurately. Basically, I come from a very monoethnic region of northern Croatia and north-west Bosnia. The question Iam trying to solve is why is one side of my family (my mother's paternal side) very physically and culturally different from their neighbours. Linguistically, religiously and by name they are completely identical to their neighbours i.e. they speak Croatian, are Catholic (although keep many non-Catholic customs of obscure origin) and their family name is Tunjic a very typical, common Croatian family name. Now this is where the puzzle starts. Farming was the norm in that region for ages and we were the only non-farming, family who had been tailors and cloth merchants for generations and very known for their skills in the milieu. Physically, they look quite Indian and have often been mistaken for Roma even by the Gestapo. However, the Roma were more famous for vagabond lifestyle and professions like acrobatics, music and tarot than tailoring. Also, in the former Ottoman Empire Slavic population was not encouraged to take trade jobs and the only prominent merchants were Armenians or Venetians. The family's other characteristics include: an adeptness with small scale money matters (grandpa fixed everyone's tax returns as well as trousers), quick auditory learning (music), pioneering spirit (grandpa's sisters were the first women in the village to go to school and encourage other women to do the same going against the village's social traditiion) and their "strange" customs included snake charming, throwing gold ducats over the couple or the dancing bride at the wedding (not practised by others in the region) playing the oud, all the women of the family fasting on the day of someone parting on a long journey complete body coverage during menstruation (they saw it as a period of great impurity), not hugging or kissing with men who are not relatives (otherwise very common and encouraged in the region), lighting a candle every 40 days for a year after someone had died, wearing black for a year (rather than 14days)endearment and using yar as an endearment term. Someone on another site suggested I may have xxxish roots but I refuse to believe it. Please reassure me that I am a Hyestani lol
Can you help me?

[jgk3]

Re: Wondering if I have Armeni roots?

Maybe you're part Armenian, I don't know. Maybe one day you can afford a DNA test for that part of your family, I hear it costs a couple few hundred dollars USD or something.

Culturally, I'm not one to know where you have enough evidence to work with in determining you are Armenian, but maybe others here will say otherwise.

[TomServo]

Re: Wondering if I have Armeni roots?

There is a possibility.

There were Armenians in what would become Yugoslavia, but they are now mostly assimilated.

[Hye_Psycho]

Re: Wondering if I have Armeni roots?

if it helps, certain sections of Croatian Nationalists consider their ancestors to have indo-iranian origins rather then predominantly Slavic. there is some small scale research into this area - although most of it seems obscure and poorly constructed. However some Iranian and Croatian Academics have taken a keen interest.

there is little doubt in my mind that the majority of the Croat population are descended from Nomadic southern Slavic tribes, but small remnants of assimilated Indo-iranians peoples may very well still live there.